Ex Synthetica
by willyolioleo
Summary: Taylor doesn't get to control insects. Instead, she controls things that are slightly... smaller. Tinker/Master Taylor. Updates weekly, hopefully. Based more on fanon than canon.
1. Exploration 1

Exploration 1

"Give it back, Emma!"

My former best friend acted clueless. The redhead just smiled at me like an innocent little angel. No doubt she'd had practice with that every week in front of the cameras at her modelling job. "Give what back, Taylor?"

"My flute, you bitch. I know you stole it."

"Oh, that old piece of junk? I think Sophia threw it in the dumpster. Why do you want it so badly anyway? You've got no musical talent."

She knew _exactly_ why I wanted the flute. It was my mother's, and she knew that. She'd been there with me after my mother had died. She knew exactly what it meant to me. But that was a long time ago. I'd given up on figuring out why she turned on me – maybe starting the modelling career made her decide she didn't want to hang out with someone as ugly as me any more. She didn't matter to me any more. My mother's memory did.

I ignored her as I ran away to the back of the school. I could smell the rancid odours of the dumpster before I saw it. Thankfully, the thing was unlocked, the chains hanging loose from the lid when I arrived. I didn't hesitate to open up the dumpster to find it. I saw a flash of silver, but not the entire flute. One of the keys had been broken off, and in another part of the dumpster I saw another piece of the flute.

They'd destroyed it. Shattered it. It was spread out in pieces all over the trash bin. I didn't care, I started climbing up so I could retrieve what I could.

As I was reaching for the biggest shard of silver metal I could see, I could feel a powerful shove tip me into the dumpster. I fell into the trash, and the lid slammed down after me.

"Stay where you belong, Hebert!" A callous laugh followed, and a few others joined her.

I recognized that voice, too. Sophia, usually the "muscle" among Emma and her posse. Figured that she was hiding somewhere around the corner. I bet Madison was off somewhere else to distract the staff and make excuses. It was how they always operated.

I writhed around in the garbage, trying to get leverage to open up the lid, but there was something blocking it. Maybe they'd locked it, I don't know. I held on tightly to the few pieces of my mom's flute I'd managed to grab, desperately hoping that I would be able to piece it back together, somehow.

I was going to yell for help, but I wanted to wait until my bullies had left. I banged on the lid a few more times and yelled, but nobody came by. I suppose everyone else was in class right now.

The smell was really getting to me. I vomited, and most of it ended up all over me as I continued to squirm.

It made me feel like I was going to pass out. Every breath I took made me feel like I was dying. I fought between gasps, my instincts telling me that I would die if I took a breath, and the same instincts telling me I'd die if I didn't. Every time I screamed for help, I had to take in a deep breath of the putrid air, causing me to throw up.

I had no idea what kind of crap ended up in Winslow's dumpster, and I was afraid that was filled with nasty diseases. It was no secret that kids openly wore gang colours here and dealt drugs. I could feel sharp objects dig into my skin. Shards of broken glass? Broken crack pipe, or something worse? Needles? I had no idea. Needles in the garbage wouldn't have surprised me. Winslow High had rightfully earned its reputation as the worst high school in town, where the wannabe gangsters regularly started shit in order to earn their way into the local gangs. There was no doubt that there were more than a few teenage drug dealers, and addicts as well. At this point, it didn't matter. I was sagging down the in the pile of trash, having lost all my strength, and my knees and shins were digging into something sharp. Combined with my vomit, whatever was in there must have been festering like mad, making the smell ever more potent. I screamed and screamed until my throat hurt, but nobody answered.

There was nobody out there. At least, nobody who cared. I couldn't tell the time exactly but I must have been here long enough that at least one class might be over. Surely someone would walk out to the back in between classes, right?

Alone. I'd been alone all of high school, ever since Emma abandoned me. Nobody helped me, not the students, especially not the teachers. Why would that change now? Hah.

I was trapped. I still held on to my mother's flute. Maybe I could find the other pieces in here. Maybe... maybe I could sort through the garbage, get the pieces, put it all back. I didn't want to lose it. I didn't want to lose mom.

I thought I heard someone talking far away. With the last, tiniest shred of hope I had remaining, I drew in one more deep breath and screamed, banging against the lid of the dumpster as hard as I could. I could feel more of the tiny glass shards and metal dig through my legs as I shifted. Nobody answered my call. As I expected.

Winslow High, where at bullying was given lip service at best. Teachers talked about it but did nothing about it. They would say "bullying is bad, don't do it," and consider the problem solved. I'd given up reporting the incidents. The administration's efforts merely amounted to "their word against mine." Simple. And since there were three of them and only one of me, I was always wrong. I was always the liar. I was always making things up. What a great message to send. If you're going to bully people, you'll get off scot-free as long as you outnumber your victims.

I wish I had power in numbers behind me. I knew it was Sophia that pushed me in, and Emma that specifically knew the flute was a good target for them. It wouldn't matter if I reported it. No doubt they would vouch for each other again, and the administration would assume I went swimming in trash as a "cry for attention."

No wonder nobody ever joined my side, came to my defense, or stood up to the Bitch Trio. They would get bullied too. And suffer the same fate. Being stuck in a dumpster gave you time to think about things for a while. It tended to happen after the panic wore off and hopelessness set in.

I'd given up wishing someone would help me. It's not like wishing my bullies would stop ever actually stopped them for the past year and a half. There was nothing I could do. My voice had given out. No room to move inside this cramped dumpster. What could my body do? I'd torn apart my skin trying to rattle open the door mechanism. They must have put the padlock on. The bugs couldn't help me. I'd gleefully imagined I could control them in my delirious, hopeless desire. But even if I could, bugs couldn't chew through a solid lock. God damn, even my imagination couldn't give me a superpower that could get me out of here.

Maybe the bacteria would kill me and decompose me into a rancid pile of goo. Then I'd drip out dumpster.

I'd almost resigned to the idea that I would just die here. Ha ha, maybe a murder charge might finally catch the police's attention, and someone would finally do something. Oh, who was I kidding? Emma's dad was a lawyer, and they'd just frame it as a suicide. It would be written on my grave how useless and pathetic I was. Oh gods, was I actually agreeing with the crap my bullies said to me? Was I going crazy, or were they right? It was hard to tell at this point.

I didn't know how much longer I could stay conscious. If only I could put it back together. I was probably going to die. If not the disease, then maybe suffocation, or maybe I'd be compacted into the dump truck when nobody came to help. I was stuck in here anyway. I was covered in filth. I ran my hands through the darkness, sifting through the trash, hoping to find something that felt familiar. I wouldn't call it hope. It wasn't as if it would help.

Even if I was going to die, I just wanted to be able to hold my mom's flute again.

* * *

Some people, after traumatic events, gained superpowers. They called it the Trigger event. It was something I learned about years ago, when I was young and fantasized about being the next Alexandria. I didn't understand what Trigger events really were or why all the superheroes were always so reluctant to talk about them.

Now I knew. And after being locked in a dumpster for an entire day, screaming myself hoarse, nearly dying from septic shock… I was almost certain I _did _have a power. I just had no idea what it was. My mind felt a little different, like I had an extra sense or an invisible arm. I just had no idea what my power did exactly. Or maybe it was the drugs.

I was partly sedated in the hospital for days. Morphine to dull the pain. There was very little I could do, and I had spent most of my time trying to figure out if I had a power or not. Holding on to that last scrap of hope from my childhood that I could be a superhero. I tried to float up off my bed. Nope. Break or bend something. I was barely strong enough to spoon feed myself hospital food. I tried to transform into something. Nope, unless _even skinnier _version of myself due to loss of appetite counted. I tried reading the nurse's mind, I just ended up just looking constipated. I just felt like I _had_ a power. Or maybe I was delirious.

Hi, I'm Taylor Hebert, punching bag of the universe. It's like everything conspired to act against me. Maybe I got powers, but I can't figure out what they do. My bullies commit a blatant crime against me, and my dad gets stuck with the hospital bills. The teachers know it happened but deny all responsibility. Hey, the dumpster behind the school isn't _in _school, so it's not their problem. I didn't get a good look at who shoved me in, therefore there's no point in investigating anything. The school administration was clearly made up of the world's greatest detectives.

It wasn't until a week later, when I returned home from the hospital that I realized what my powers were. So no, it wasn't just the morphine giving me funny feelings. The painkillers and sedatives and all the other drugs I was hopped up on must have been suppressing them. I had only discovered it by accident - I guess powers didn't always come naturally to people who received them? I didn't exactly chat with parahumans on a regular basis.

At home, under the comfort of blankets and ice cream, I was able to finally calm down and forget about things, even if it was just for a brief moment. I discovered my power when I inadvertently made a robot out of a few paperclips, staples, AAA batteries and the desk clock. Without thinking. I was just watching TV at the time. It couldn't do much right away, mainly just walk around and bump into the table legs. But that wasn't the cool part. I could control it just by thinking it. I hadn't been able to control any of the hospital machines when I had been there. I definitely tried.

So maybe I could only control what I made myself. I was no expert on robotics before I had my powers, but I knew at the very least robots needed some kind of circuitry, radio, remote controls, or something like that. My bot... didn't. I didn't have any way to control it. It just... did what I thought. I wasn't sure if that made me a robotics expert or not, but for the moment I didn't care. I had a little companion.

"Hey, little buddy," I said to my tiny robot. It turned to "face" me eagerly. For something without a head, or technically without a front or a back, it was surprisingly cute. Or maybe that was my pride talking. It was objectively pretty ugly, but I had made it. So it was cute to me.

"Come here," I said. I dropped my hand down towards the floor. The little robot skittered towards me obediently and crawled up my fingers to reach my chest. The paperclip legs stung my skin a tiny bit, but it didn't cut me at all.

"Alright, buggy-bot. Show me what you can do. Um… pass me the TV remote!"

It crawled back down my arm, up the coffee table leg, and reached the TV remote. It had nothing to grip the remote, so it crawled to the opposite side and pushed the remote towards me. Slowly. Ever so slowly. It kept pushing until the remote toppled over the edge and onto the carpet.

My little bot crawled down and continued to try to get the remote closer to me. Unfortunately, there was just too much friction, and its tiny little legs just couldn't push against the carpet very well. I laughed. "Okay, that's enough you little dope. You did good." I picked up the remote and used my finger to pat it.

I'm pretty sure it was just a robot and didn't have feelings. And it was probably only doing what I was ordering it to do. But I didn't care. It was cute, and it was practically my pet. The odd thing was that I knew I was controlling it, and yet... I was still somewhat surprised by what it did. Maybe it was my subconscious that controlled it? I didn't even understand my own power. But it didn't really matter.

Not the flashiest of the superpowers, but definitely one of the most valuable. The Protectorate would probably classify me as Tinker 1, Master 1. The strongest local hero, Armsmaster, was a Tinker. Most of the Protectorate's headquarters was based on Tinker-tech. So while it would have been nice to have powers like, I super-strength or teleportation or the classic Alexandria package, there was no shame in being a Tinker. Master was also kind of obvious, since I could control the robot with my mind. Until I could figure out what I could really create, my Tinker rating would remain pretty low. And I was pretty sure I could only control the robots I made, not animals or other humans, so I wouldn't be a highly-rated Master either.

I looked at the clock to see how long Dad would be until he got back home, but I couldn't find it.

Then I smacked myself when I remembered I'd dismantled it to make my robot. And also, the TV remote didn't have batteries any more.

I guess I had to go out and grab a cheap clock to replace it. And maybe extra batteries, too. I could use my allowance money, no need to bother Dad with my problems. I grabbed my pepper spray and whistle. The part of town I lived in wasn't that bad, but it _was_ a town with three major gangs. Maybe one fifth of the students in Winslow were either part of a gang or were likely to join one before graduation or dropping out. You couldn't be too safe in a town like Brockton Bay.

I hadn't gone for a run since getting back from the hospital. My legs felt like toothpicks powered by Jello right now – the shit I stewed in while in my locker had wreaked havoc on them. I was lucky not to have gotten gangrene. Today I had to take it slow to work my way back up to my routine.

I also took my new little bot with me. It skittered on the ground like a pet rat. It moved slowly (okay, it was pretty fast for its size) but I wasn't running quickly anyway. Not with my legs in the condition that they were. I could still see the scars, discoloured skin, and bruises that covered them.

The run… no, jog… no, speed-walk was not what I had hoped it would be. I felt pain in my shins and ankles with every step. I started out at what I thought I could handle, and quickly had to go slower and slower until I was only slightly faster than a brisk stride. I used to run every day; but now my legs were in such bad condition that I'd be lucky to run at all before the end of the month. I felt so useless and weak.

At least I had a training partner. My scavenged-scrap robo-bug followed me diligently.

En route to the electronics store, I tried to test my powers, to see what my limits were or if I had anything else I didn't realize I had yet. At the traffic light, I tried to force the light to change earlier. No dice. Just like in the hospital, I couldn't control electronics in general. Just the robot I created. I focused on animals and people I passed by too, just in case. Nothing. Which was actually a good thing; if I could actually control other people's minds, I could instantly jump up in threat ratings and every gang, as well as the Protectorate, would probably want to either recruit, control, or kill me. Masters that could control other people always caused a media frenzy. It was practically an entire genre of film; Masters that took over people's minds. Cliche horror, but not unfounded.

On the other hand, I was definitely a Tinker. As I was thinking of what clock I should buy, my mind instantly jumped to improvements on the robot I had made. As well as what materials I'd want to get. And things I could salvage or scavenge to make further designs. I had to consciously quash down the urge to buy twenty clocks.

I did pass by a secondhand store before I got to the electronics store. _Maybe I COULD buy twenty clocks…NO! Bad Taylor, bad! No buying twenty clocks,_ I berated myself. Maybe I'd limit myself to five, if they were cheap enough.

* * *

"Taylor? Why are there seven clocks on the dinner table?" I heard my dad call out to me. I had been clearing out the tiny room in the cellar in hopes to make it my workshop. Our house was old – old enough to have a coal chute, back whenever people used to burn coal inside their own homes. The coal room was obviously unused, so I thought it was a nice place to hide away and do my Tinkering.

_Crap_. I had intended to keep this a secret from my dad, but building things was so distracting I had completely forgotten to clean up and lost track of time. There was no way to get around it; I would just have to admit it to him. Strange that he was actually talking to me now. Not that we'd exchanged more than a few words at a time since mom died.

"One of them's acually a broken mp3 player!" I shouted back up at him. That was a good find. More complex circuitry for me to salvage than clocks, and it was basically the same price as a secondhand clock because only the clock part of it worked.

I heard my dad walking down the stairs. "Okay, so why are there six clocks and a broken mp3 player here?" he asked.

I had debated during my shopping trip whether I would tell my dad about my powers or not, but at this point I had no choice. A lot of capes did their cape thing in secret, even from their own family or friends. They kept their identities completely separate, for various reasons. For one thing, it was to prevent their family from being targeted by villains. Even though it was _really_ taboo to target a cape's civilian life, there were always people who broke the rules and used it as a tactic. Plausible deniability went a long way there. I had tried to think of ways of breaking it to him slowly, but all those plans were clearly being thrown out the window now.

On the other hand, I wasn't planning on going out and being a superhero. Or a supervillain. I mean, what could I really do, anyway? Make some useless pet-sized robot? Maybe they could be toys or something. For the most part, I'd end up just living a calm, civilian life with minor superpowers to keep things entertaining. I mean, there was that other cape in town, Parian. She just did puppet shows for kids in the park with her power. And it wasn't as if I had the money or the space to just do this on my own, not without Dad's help. Tinkers were notorious for being ridiculously weak at first, needing lots of money or materials to get the ball rolling.

But the real issue was my Dad. I knew he'd had to deal with parahumans before - mainly villains. He was doing his best to protect the Dockworker's Union, finding work for the members, even though the Docks themselves were all but abandoned. Nobody but criminals wanted to do anything with the area, and almost all criminals were led by parahumans. They constantly tried to bribe or threaten dad and the other dockworkers. And since the Docks were such a low-value part of the city, the PRT wasn't sparing many heroes to help. I was afraid he would have... bias against them.

I took a deep breath and put on a fake cheerful voice. "Hey dad! Uh… long story short, I have powers?"

I looked at my father's face. He looked at me blankly for a second. One eyebrow went up. He took a deep breath, sighed and walked up to me with a somewhat forced smile. "Okay, tell me what you can do."

Phew. That went way better than I thought it would.

"Uh, I made this little guy," I said, ordering my little bug-bot to crawl up to him. He held the robot in his hands, carefully inspecting it.

"Wow, that's pretty interesting. So these…?" He asked, holding up the bag of second-hand store merchandise.

"I think I can make more. Better ones. That's just raw material," I explained. "Oh, except one. I, uh, accidentally dismantled the living room clock to make Buggy McBugface here."

"So, I have to ask… are you planning on being a hero with your new powers? Because, Taylor, you have to know, I'll always want what's best for you. But you'll always be my precious daughter, and..."

"No, dad."

"...if you're going to be in danger, I can't condone… wait, what?"

"I'm not planning on being a superhero, dad. I mean, can _you_ think of how much crime I could fight with him?" Buggy fell down to the ground on its back. It wiggled its legs frantically and was unable to right itself. Something I'd have to fix for future models…

"Oh. You're… not?"

"No, dad. Can you imagine him taking on an Endbringer?" I asked, flipping Buggy over. I still had no idea what else I could make. I mean, I had some ideas, but it wasn't like I instantly figured out my specialty, or how to put it to use.

"I see. That's… good! Oh, Taylor. You have no idea how relieved I am." He gave me a tight hug. "So. What _can_ you build?"

* * *

I'm not sure if dad was enjoying the tinkering, or if he was just looking for an excuse to have some more father-daughter time. Maybe it was both. We hadn't spent much time with each other since Mom died. Dad was even more depressed than I was for months after that, and we barely spoke to each other. We took care of each other - as in, he paid the bills and I cooked food occasionally, but neither of us really knew how to help each other. We didn't even talk to each other. We just... occasionally existed in the same building as each other.

Even after we got over it (mostly), we were never really as close as we probably should have been. I guess it stemmed partly from the hopelessness that lingered from mom's death; it was a problem that neither of us could fix. Complaining about it, whine about it, wishing we could have changed the past - nothing we actually did would have ever brought her back. It was all we could think about, but neither of us could actually do anything about it. So we just stopped talking to each other for a year, other than the occasional "hello" or "dinner's ready."

Even when we did start talking to each other, we still never really shared our problems. Dad's work was stressful enough, along with money. He didn't bother me with his issues, because I couldn't do anything about it. He didn't want me to worry about something I couldn't do anything about. I didn't want to bother him with my school issues for the exact same reasons.

But now we had something to share with each other. Especially because we were both learning as we went along.

For example, I realized I had no talent for fixing his truck even with my Tinkering skill. The big, complex machinery just didn't jive with my powers. But at least Dad let me try it out. He explained what he knew about it, and I understood it about as much as any normal person would. That meant cars definitely weren't my specialty. Unlike Squealer, one of the villains that terrorized the areas near the docks with her haphazard monster-truck creations.

Little robo-bugs made sense to me, though. From my shopping haul, I managed to make ten more bugs. They were incrementally better as I figured out what to make. My second one had an actual face, with little mandibles to grip things. The third and fourth had two little gripper arms so they could hold on to each other. The last six didn't have any additional features, but they were all smaller and smaller- mostly owing to the fact that I was running low on materials and just had to build them that way.

Collectively, they could lift a cup of water and carry it to me. Yay teamwork!

"They're like ants," my dad commented. "A few hundred more and maybe they can help around the house."

That was the comment that led us to the scrapyard.

I never knew about this place, but apparently dad had used it often back in the day. Both as a place to dump mechanical scrap from the docks when business had been good, and to scavenge spare parts to keep his old truck running. A small entrance fee and we were allowed to take as much as we could carry. I wasn't expecting to find very much – Brockton Bay had several Tinker capes already, most notably the hero Armsmaster and the (not particularly successful) villain L33t, the aforementioned Squealer, alongside several others. The scrapyard was pretty much cleaned out of useful Tinker materials. However, my bugs gave me a minor advantage.

They could crawl deep into junk piles and find small, nearly-useless bits of scrap that others ignored. I didn't need large, intact pieces. I could make do with small pieces. The smaller the parts I had, the smaller I would just build my next bots. So a two-inch piece of wire was just about useless to everyone else? I could strip it apart and make eight tiny bot legs out of it.

Most of the time, I would tell my bots to only bring back pieces they could actually carry. Although they could carry far more than their own weight, most of the larger pieces were wedged or stuck under much larger objects. I told my bots to ignore those; it was only when there was a real hidden gem buried deep that Dad and I would have to use our muscles and dig.

We spent an entire afternoon there. I constructed more bots as they gathered the scrap, building as we went. Every time I had a completed one, I sent it out to gather as well. We kept going until I ended up with more spare parts than we could carry. We entered with eleven; we ended up leaving with eighteen functional robots plus enough scrap to build thirty more.

"I'd say today was a pretty successful day," Dad said, grinning. "I haven't seen you this happy for a long time."

He was right. In the scrapyard, I didn't have a care in the world except for making more of my little robots. I had a talent and I was using it. Dad was there by my side. We didn't have much, but it made me happy just to be there without a care in the world.

"Thanks for taking me here, dad," I said.

"I'm glad you found your calling," he said, while stepping forward to give me an awkward hug. "I know I haven't been a good father lately. I'm sorry I haven't didn't support you after... uh... well, until you were in the hosp... err, what I'm trying to say is that I'm here now. I'm not making that mistake again. I'm going to help you be the best you can be."

"Oh... um... thanks, dad," I mumbled out. It was true, the past year we'd practically ignored each other. Not that I hated him but I guess neither of us really figured out how to talk.

Dad ended up driving me to an electronics specialty store. My mind whirled with things I could create with everything I was seeing. Wires, resistors, transistors, batteries, solder... I wanted to buy everything there. Clear out its entire stock and make millions of robots.

I did manage to restrain myself. Dad ended up buying me a precision toolset, and just a few small items that would help me round off the next additions to my swarm of robots. I was excited to get back home. With my small swarm of bots, I still couldn't do much, but... I could reassemble most of Mom's flute. They couldn't repair the cracks, and they weren't powerful enough to hammer bent metal back into shape, but they could hold all the pieces together while I taped things back together.

I wouldn't lose Mom.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Hey, I'm back. And first things first: I haven't actually read Worm. I discovered this fandom through several crossovers, and ended up writing something based entirely on what I learned from fanon. I'll actually go and read the real thing now.


	2. Exploration 2

Exploration 2

The next few days passed by in a blur. I just wanted to build, build, build. I experimented with ideas as soon as they popped into my head. Often I forgot to eat, until Dad reminded me. He was getting worried too, and he was the one who looked up the condition online. Apparently it was a thing among Tinkers to go into a frenzy, especially when they were starting out. It happened often enough to be named. Tinker fugue, they called it. Too many ideas in the head that had to be let out. It would slow down eventually.

For me, slowing down was more of a necessity than because of a lack of ideas. My fingers were aching from working so much. It was getting obvious that I couldn't really build every single robot myself. Even with the toolkit my dad had bought for me, I was pretty much hitting my limit at fifty per day before my hands started feeling numb and my eyes were strained. It took nearly a hundred bots to do anything useful, like move a large box across the garage.

I would need these robots to build themselves. Which meant I needed to design a robot that was capable of building other robots. _That_ sparked off another bout of inspired Tinkering, one that almost led me to almost disassemble dad's truck for parts until he dragged me away from it.

My tinkering ability still fizzled out when each robot got too complex. I couldn't just keep slapping on more arms and more tools, more complex hands and grips. I went through over a dozen iterations before I realized the best solution was a small set of robots that could grip each other's bodies, coordinating a simple tool mounted on their heads. Working together in various arrangements, could squeeze, tear, drill, or cut. They could change their function rapidly simply by shifting how they arranged themselves relative to each other.

By necessity, they had to be small; a combination of six of them had to do the same job as my needlenose pliers, and all six needed to fit into the space of the head of the pliers. Each of them was the size of a large ant wearing a pointy hat; it was about as tiny as I could possibly manage with my own hands and a pair of tweezers to assemble them.

I made as many as I could by hand, then put them to work building more of themselves as I went along. By the second day, they were already building themselves faster than I could, so I gave up and let them do it on their own. I was still getting ideas from my Tinker power, but at least my fingers could take a break.

When dad got home, I was watching a documentary about fire ants in the hopes that it would inspire something. Of course, the ants tended to work in teams of thousands at a time, and it would be a while before I had built up that many bots.

"Taylor, what are you doing?" he said, giving me a strange look as he walked into the living room.

"Taking a break?" I said as I popped another grape into my mouth.

"No, I mean, _that_." He pointed at the bowl of grapes.

My robots picked up another grape. They clambered over each other, stiffened their legs while three of them pulled on the others. They let go, springing the grape into the air like a miniature catapult. I caught it in my mouth. After my hands had become sore from building bots by hand, I felt lazy and recruited a few bots to feed myself. At first, I had them carry them and walk across the ground, but it felt kind of dirty. Getting them to catapult them over was much more fun. It had taken me an hour to get it right.

"Eating grapes," I said as nonchalantly as I could manage.

Dad watched as the team of robots picked up another one and launched another grape perfectly into my mouth.

"Toss one over here, will you?"

I lobbed one into his forehead.

* * *

I knew I had to go back to school eventually. As much as dad was impressed with my Tinkering, I still needed at least a high school diploma to get anywhere in life. And as much fun as I was having with my robots, I had come to realize I probably wouldn't be able to sell them. They only did anything when I was in direct control; I couldn't create any kind of control mechanism for Dad to take command of the swarm. He could only make a request to me, and then I would fulfill the request by commanding the bots. That really limited the utility and sales prospects of my creations.

I'd heard of Toybox, a Tinker market where people could sell their creations, often at absurdly high prices due to their unique and powerful technology. I wouldn't be making money there, sadly. Not unless I had a huge breakthrough in my specialty that allowed someone other than myself to control them. And only if I was willing to go villain, since most of their customers were on the wrong side of the law. My best bet was still to go through school normally. Maybe take business classes and go independent, figure out the best way to use my abilities and make a living from it. There were plenty of laws that were applicable only to capes that I would have to navigate if I went that route.

The first day back in school since the dumpster incident was not something I was looking forward to. But I didn't want my bullies to win. They wanted to see me give up, fail, drop out. Denying them that pleasure made up a large portion of my motivation to return to the halls of Winslow. Needless to say, the Terrible Triumvirate and the rest of their posse didn't waste time resuming their usual abuse. No mercy from the wicked, after all. Still, I had my little bots today. I took the tiniest ones I had – the latest batch that was produced overnight. These ones were smaller than ants, easy to sneak around the school. Each iteration was getting smaller and smaller. Although I had originally wanted them to be small to increase precision, there was the side benefit of being harder to see. Within a few more days, the newest bots would be too small to be seen at all, barely bigger than dust mites.

"Ugh, did Hebert really have to come back here and stink up the place again?"

"Why does she even bother? It's not like she'll even graduate with how poorly she does in class."

"Hey Taylor."

I knew that last voice very well. Emma Barnes, the worst of my trio of tormentors. Sure, Sophia was the one who was the most physical, but Emma was the one who got under my skin the most. She knew everything about me. She had been my best friend, after all.

I shut my locker immediately to stop them from peeking inside, or slamming the door on my hand. I don't know what they were planning, but I had to be cautious. "What is it this time Emma?"

"I just wanted to see if you were still crying, Taylor. You know, you cried for, like, two weeks straight when your mom died." She laughed.

I grit my teeth. She _dared_ to use that against me? When my mom died, she'd been the shoulder I cried on. Now she wanted to make fun of me for that?

I wished I could get my little robots to scratch her up for that. Fuck her and her future modeling career. A nice big scar right across her perfect face would do her justice right about now. But that was pretty much a surefire way to bring the Parahuman Response Team coming down on me and putting a quick end to my nonexistent career.

But I did have a use for them right away. I had dozen of them crawl into her purse. I'd learned, from my time at the scrapyard, that I happened to have an inherent sense of where my robots were, and vaguely have a sense of touch through them. No matter how far they would crawl, I always knew where they were. It was like a sixth sense, like knowing where my arms were positioned with my eyes closed. I had limited range, but that was part of the reason why I had some bots in my backpack with some raw materials, continuing to build themselves quietly.

Yes, I realized I was mainly going to use them to avoid the trio. Yes, I knew I was just running from my problems. For now.

"Just go away, Emma." I locked my locker and walked away as quickly. I did leave a few bots sitting on the inside of the door, though. They always seemed to be able to steal things from my locker, even when I changed locks. Emma was no locksmith. Maybe Sophia? Then again, it could be Madison. There was a reason she hung out with Emma and Sophia so much, and looking cute only went so far. I wouldn't be able to stop their thieving, but at least I would know when it happened.

"Don't tell me what to do. You don't even belong here. Go back to the dumpster, maybe you can suck a hobo's dick and you can live together there," Emma said in her false saccharine voice. "That is, if a hobo would even want to be your boyfriend."

I ignored her as best I could.

* * *

All things considered, my robo-bugs did their job pretty well. I sent several more bugs latching onto Sophia and Madison's clothes when I shared classes with them, as well as their lockers when I passed by them in the halls.

I managed to avoid more than half the ambushes that the trio had set up for me. I could tell ahead of time when they were hiding around the corner to trip me over the stairs, so I took the long way around. My bots let me realize when Emma went straight from her locker to the bathroom I was hiding in, probably to throw something at me over the stalls. I quickly cleaned up and went to the bathroom downstairs. The only place they could actually catch me was just before or after classes they shared with me, or when I had to go to my locker. I'd already started using my locker as little as possible, aside from a place to stash a few extra bots.

Satisfaction was something I rarely ever felt at school, but seeing them waste their time trying to ambush me was, surprisingly, more satisfying than I had expected..

I was probably among the lowest-rated Tinkers, but my life was already slightly improved. But this wasn't justice, nor was it vengeance. It was just avoidance. They were still getting away with what they did. They could keep trying until they succeeded. They weren't paying for what they had done to me for the past year and a half. And they wouldn't be learning any lessons. I needed to become stronger... more powerful. I needed to improve my Tinkering.

My bots couldn't truly solve my bullying problem, though. I needed evidence. Actual, undeniable evidence, like video. Unfortunately, my bots couldn't see. I needed to figure out if I could work that in somehow. Even if they could, and if I could see through their eyes, I had no idea how to get them to record video onto a portable hard drive or something. I needed to actually learn computer science to do that. My Tinker power didn't help with that; I'd have to learn computer engineering the normal way. No way I was delaying justice by a few years. That wasn't a real option. I was patient, but not that patient.

And _even then_, I would have to present the video without making it obvious that I was a cape. If the video was taken from some odd angle, like where I could hide my bots, I'd practically be outing myself to the public. People would ask how I recorded it. Or who was helping me. And then the jig would be up, people would discover I was a cape. And even though I was doing something relatively harmless like spying on my enemies, that would still probably count as misuse of parahuman powers. Emma's father was a lawyer; he'd probably bankrupt my dad with legal fees out of spite.

I had a lot more problems to solve before I could figure out how to get justice done. That would have to wait.

* * *

It didn't take long before little builder-bots had been miniaturized to the size of mites. Using my bots to avoid the trio made school the most bearable since... well, ever. It was still pretty miserable compared to what a "normal" student life should be, having to constantly be on the lookout for them, but I would take the small victories I could get.

Even better, I had something to look forward to. When I got home, I could continue developing my bots. Sure, maybe I suffered in class a bit when I kept doodling up new designs in the margins of my notebook instead of taking actual notes. I didn't care, I had something productive to work on. Interestingly, at such a small size, my bots could be literally shaken by sound vibrations, if people were talking loudly enough. With some practice, I was able to eavesdrop through my bots now. The smaller I made them, the more possibilities seemed to open up. At school, it helped me anticipate my bullies' plans. At home, the realization set off _another_ Tinkering frenzy.

Incidentally, my bullies had even helped me, though I would never thank them for it. I had managed to solve three problems in one fell swoop. I needed a sharp, strong tool, I wanted to make my bots more chemically resistant, and I needed my bots to see. During chemistry class the trio caused me to drop a beaker. My bots were trying to discreetly get rid of the shards of glass that had stuck to my shoes so I wouldn't cut myself later. But my bots were having more trouble than I had expected. I hadn't considered glass before, because I thought of glass as something weak and brittle. But that was only at the human scale. For something as tiny as my bots, glass shards at that size were incredibly strong compared to other materials. And given the size of my bots, a single beer bottle gave me enough material for days of manufacturing. The glass happened to have a side effect of focusing light when it was polished the right way.

Once I had discovered that, my Tinkering ability gave me another wave of inspiration. It took all my self-control not to just rush home and Tinker right then and there. I saved it for after school and the weekend. My bots could now see, hear, _and_ had better tools. Well, "seeing" might have been a bit of an exaggeration. A single bot could tell the difference between light and dark. A million of them working together gave me the vision of a nearsighted, colourblind bat.

But it was better than nothing. I could recognize shapes through my bots. I could see what the trio were planning to do to me. I practiced by sending my bots outside the house, skittering along the sidewalk to try to recognize people, cars, and other shapes. Meanwhile, merely keeping track of the vibrations going through their bodies let me get a sense of sound from them - the smaller my bots were, the clearer the sound vibrations came through.

They also had so many tools for me to put to use. Well, technically only one tool, but working in groups they could do a lot. For example, if they lined up and repeatedly scratched something back and forth, they made a tiny little saw. Or if they lined up in a circle and walked around with their sharp noses pointed down, they could make a drill. Otherwise they were just really good at gripping things by linking with each other, pulling as a team. It didn't take many of them to be effective, and they were small enough to go completely unnoticed.

So the terrible trio wanted to pour cranberry juice on my head? Too bad. The bottle mysteriously sprung a leak inside Emma's locker and dripped all over her jacket, textbooks, and homework.

Maybe their clothes would have mysterious holes in them at the end of the day. Perhaps they should have invested in mothballs for their locker.

Oh, no, Sophia the track team star's shoelaces suddenly snapped in half just before the track meet? How awful, what a terrible stroke of bad luck.

Naturally this always had to happen while I had a perfect alibi. I only did these things while I shared a class with them. It's not like they had anything to report to the teachers. They merely suffered some... misfortunes.

If Winslow High refused to punish anyone without damning evidence, I could play at that game as well as they could. It was time to test if the school administration was truly biased against me, or if they were really just that stupid and lazy.

I knew Sophia was like a volcano ready to explode. She was about to blow at any minute, and most of it would probably be directed it at me. She probably suspected me, but clearly had no idea how I was doing what I did. Which made me ridiculously happy. I was _winning_ for the first time. Even though it could come crashing back down on me, I was having my moment of victory.

I could hit them where they couldn't hit me back. Sure, they still messed up my homework and sabotaged my in-class group work, accused me of cheating to the teachers, and other silly things. The usual tricks. I'd gotten used to those ploys. I had made it hard enough for them that they had to resort to more and more blatant attempts, which meant they failed more often too. I wasn't afraid. They were. They were afraid to leave anything out of sight.

And while they stressed out, I didn't. I had my little zen place – the junkyard, where I would merrily go after school, pay the scavenger's fee, and let my bots go to town. Every day, I was sprinkling more and more of the little guys around the school, using them to keep an eye on the trio, keeping them on their toes. Bit by bit, I was taking back control of my life.

There was just one thing that bothered me. They were still able to get into my locker. They hadn't done it for a while, but I finally caught on to _how_ they managed it.

My bots, which had been my miniature sentinels of my locker door, sensed a hand reaching inside after I had left school for the weekend.

Not the door opening.

Just a hand, reaching inside. They groped around and grabbed nothing of value. Through the door. One of the trio was a cape. I had a few of my bots latch on to their skin, and miraculously, some of them even got pulled through the door and stayed with them.

I didn't want to face them right now. It was too much of a revelation for me to deal with, and I didn't want to run back towards school just to face a villain without preparation. What if it was Emma? Maybe that's why she turned on me. Maybe she got powers that summer while I had been away at camp. It wouldn't make sense for her to have joined the Empire 88, since she hung out with Sophia so much, but still...

* * *

The junkyard was supposed to be a place for me to calm down and meditate. It had been for the past few weeks. The place was usually fairly empty and quiet. There was no trio to bother me nor uncaring teachers to pity me. Those worries I left behind while I spread my bots far and wide, salvaging what materials I could find while I continued to build and improve my swarm.

I was trying to work out my frustration of finding out that one of the trio had powers. Some kind of villain. Probably threatened Blackwell or something, which was why the administration never did anything to help me. Unfortunately, I was beginning to run into frustrations out here as well.

I'd hit a limit. No, it wasn't my Tinkering ability or my creativity. I had plenty of plans for future improvements to my bots. But I'd run into the biggest problem that every Tinker had. Money and materials. The junkyard didn't have many materials as it was – like I knew before, the bulk of the materials had already been scavenged by previous Tinkers (or just normal hobbyists). My tiny builder-bots had nearly mined through what was left. I completely lost track of how many I had, but I think I was in the tens of millions.

I'd made small, incremental improvements to my bots every day. On some iterations, I made them stronger. On others, I'd improved their eyesight. Or I'd make their tool-tips sharper. Sometimes I improved the way they linked and worked together. Often I just made them even smaller. Some of these improvements took more specialized materials. Tiny shards of unblemished glass for the lens. Silicon for the sensors. Stainless steel for the bodies. These specific materials were in short supply in the junkyard.

If I wanted cheap plastic, or rusted iron, there was still plenty to go around. I could stagnate, and just make millions upon millions of the same bots at their current level. But that felt unsatisfying. I felt incomplete. I had dozens of plans, I _needed _to see them come to light. I couldn't just stop, only a tiny fraction into my path at Tinkering with mediocre micro-bots. But to make _good_ robots, I needed to start buying the materials myself. Things that weren't available at the junkyard. Which meant I needed money.

That was usually the limiting factor for any Tinker on the planet, unless you were Dragon, who owned multiple factories across the continent and had built the most secure prison on the planet. Even our local Tinker, Armsmaster, was still held back somewhat by the Protectorate's budget.

But the Protectorate _did_ have money. After all, they were able to turn an old oil rig into a Tinker's fortress, with prison cells that could hold teleporters and Brutes, force fields and turrets that would repel attacks, and armour plating that would put reinforced concrete to shame. Most of this was credited to Armsmaster's designs. So, yes. Funding was there for talented Tinkers. Even for their less talented, where I would probably be going, was their Wards program. As an up-and-coming, young cape, I'd get funding, though there would be rules behind it. I might even have a chance at working with my childhood hero! I knew of at least one other teenage Tinker in that program – Kid Win. I just hoped he wasn't like the Trio. Or Greg, the creepy geek in class.

Ugh. It was such a tough choice... teenage drama, or supplies and support? In the end, practicality won out.

* * *

"Are you sure about this, Taylor?" Dad asked me as we walked towards the PRT Headquarters.

I nodded. "I think it'd be nice to meet other Tinkers and work with them," I said. Quietly, I added, "Even if it means I have to deal with more teen drama."

Apparently I didn't say it quietly enough. My dad turned to me and said, "Taylor. You don't have to do this if you don't want to. I haven't told a soul, and I never will. If you want to stay anonymous, I'll take your secret to the grave. If you need more supplies or tools, just let me know. I'll ask around at the docks, I'm sure at least some of the boys will..."

I shook my head. "I can't do that to you, dad. I know you're doing your best and stretching the budget to help me, but... you don't have to. I'm sure I can handle this. It'll be good for both of us."

Dad sighed. "There's also another reason I don't want you to join. This town more than its share of crime, and I know the Wards are sent out on patrols. I don't want them to force you into dangerous situations."

"Maybe we can negotiate that with them? I'm not joining for sure. Only if they have a good offer," I said. After all, the money and materials were the main reason I was joining them. If they couldn't offer enough of an incentive, then there was no point in signing any contract.

We took the long way there, walking along the Boardwalk after lunch to the building. Out in the Bay, the Protectorate headquarters stood like a gleaming jewel. The converted oil rig towered over the waters, gleaming with thick, masterfully crafted armour plating. It was a bastion of strength, visible from the entire shoreline of Brockton Bay. At the same time, it felt like a distant castle. Expensive, high-tech, and most importantly, _separated_ from Brockton Bay. For all the power the heroic capes had in this town, they still hadn't managed to make a real dent in the crime scene.

On the other hand, the PRT building looked far more normal. Just a regular building not too far from the Boardwalk. Well, a regular building that had hidden turrets and a forcefields and other hidden defenses, in the middle of downtown. It was an ugly, rectangular, concrete thing that probably had layers of armour underneath the boring, gray exterior.

We wandered into the lobby. To one side was a bright and colourful gift shop, in stark contrast to the rest of the building. On the other side were some rather heavy-looking doors. In the middle there was a single receptionist behind bulletproof glass, and several other officers standing around. Despite their body armor and armaments, at least they were nice enough to put a smile on.

"Hello, welcome to the PRT East-Northeast Headquarters. How can I help you today?"

There was something bugging me at the back of my mind as Dad urged me forward. I tried to ignore it. I thought it was just nervousness. Looking around, I saw only a seating area and a small gift shop. Nothing I could really use to put it off or make excuses now. I just had to ignore that odd feeling and do what I came here to do. "Hi… Um… I was thinking about joining the Wards program..."

The lady behind the desk brightened up. "Oh! Are you a new cape? Have you picked a cape name yet? Wait, don't tell me. Standard procedure is to maintain anonymity in these cases. Please, take a seat or browse the gift shop while I inform the appropriate personnel. There may be a short interview today, along with some background checks and other information."

I nodded and sat in the waiting area. The nagging feeling didn't go away. Who would I be meeting today? Armsmaster himself? Probably not. Most people on the online forums who had met him in-person had said that he was gruff and unfriendly. Social skills of a rock. Combat skills of, well, a master-at-arms. But not the person to be the public face, even if I could see a life-size poster on display at the gift shop from here. Maybe I'd get to meet Miss Militia? She was pretty cool too. I had a smaller version of her poster in my room.

Dad was reading a pamphlet he picked up at the desk. "Hm… according to this, patrols actually aren't necessary. Why would any parent allow their children to try to fight thugs? I don't understand." He looked at me with a worried glance.

"The most they do is walk around downtown and call for backup. They're not supposed to do much fighting, as far as I know. Even if they do, it's only after the professionals arrive, and they only provide backup." I'd done my own research. I tried to calm him down with my words, but I my own anxiety was climbing when I started to realize what was nagging me this whole time.

"Still sounds a little dangerous. You'd still have to go out at night..."

I didn't answer him. I knew exactly what I had been feeling.

It was a group of less than a hundred of my robots. Here, in headquarters. I'd never brought them here before. My mind was reconnecting with them after I had gotten close enough. Despite having millions of different robots, I had an intuitive sense of which robots were which. I couldn't identify them on an individual basis, but when I set a group of them to do a job, I knew how to identify the group that was doing each particular job. When I was in the junkyard spreading my bots in every direction, I knew exactly which ones had found something or needed my help. And in this instance, I knew that this group of robots I was sensing were the ones I specifically had attached to the hand that reached through my locker door.

Mixed in with them was the group of bots I had attached to Sophia Hess's clothes.

Their job was to simply tell me where she was at all times; how far away and in what direction she was. She was about three hundred feet to my right and forty feet down. That put them deep in the basement levels. Heavily defended and high security area. There was no reason for her to be there unless she was arrested, being placed in the PRT holding cells for parahumans. Given her attitude and all the crap she'd done to me, I was hoping that, by amazing coincidence, she had been caught reaching into my locker using parahuman powers and arrested.

But I wouldn't be so lucky. No, of course not. The bots, and therefore Sophia, were moving. Maybe not that far, twenty to thirty feet. But unless the PRT was in the habit of providing luxury jail cells, Sophia wasn't an inmate. She was walking free, inside the middle of the high security area of the PRT building.

Just to be sure, I did my best to use my bots to listen. I normally would use a whole lot more, but I worked with what I had. The sound quality was extremely rough, but I was able to pick up some speech.

_"...are you... trol... with?"_

_"...your business... slow me..."_

_"Jeez, no... that...brought snacks... before... go."_

_"Whatev... shitty food..."_

One of the voices sounded vaguely like Sophia. That just confirmed it. Sophia Hess was a Ward.

_Sophia Hess_ was a _Ward_.

Not just a Ward. But _Shadow Stalker_ had the exact power set required to reach into my locker. What were the chances that there was a _second_ cape at Winslow with the same, or similar, power set? Slim. Not zero. But slim. But if the Protectorate was vouching for Sophia... that would explain a lot.

I was starting to see their PR photoshoots as just that. Public Relations, otherwise known as carefully crafted lies. In all the photos, there had only been two girls in the Wards. Vista was blonde and short; her costume left some skin showing and she was clearly Caucasian. The other was Shadow Stalker. Her costume covered her from head to toe in a body armour, mask, hood, and gloves. But now that I think about it, she was the right build, the right height.

Sophia was Shadow Stalker, no doubt about it. Powers, age, build, height... even the attitude. Everything fit. Everything made so much more sense now; how they had gotten inside my locker, how she kept stealing my stuff. Now that I knew, I also knew what to watch out for.

_My personal tormentor_ was operating with the _approval and support_ of the Protectorate.

Fuck that. Fuck that to hell and back.

I was NOT going to suffer Sophia for six hours at school and then suffer her for another six hours after school. Hell, she'd probably just turn the other Wards against me, too. Maybe she would sabotage my Tinkering. Oh, and then she'd instantly figure out how I'd been getting back at her at school, and get me kicked straight out again. She could also tell everyone that I'd been abusing my powers, and they would naturally trust their pretty, strong, veteran team member than the new girl.

Nope. Nope nope nope.

"Dad, I changed my mind." I stood up quickly.

"What?"

"I changed my mind. Let's go. I don't want to join the Wards. I, uh, wouldn't have much time to finish my homework anyway. And it's just more time I'm spending away from you," I said, hastily making excuses as quickly as I could formulate them. I didn't want to hang around to see who would be doing my interview. I didn't want to tell them more about myself. Sophia would probably learn all my personal secrets from them and flip them back on me at school. Her tag-team with Emma would be even worse. Emma knew everything about my childhood, Sophia would know everything about my cape life. Fuck that.

Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe not. I wasn't going to leave that to chance.

My dad knew there was something wrong. Maybe he was respecting my wishes. Maybe he was just happy that I was choosing what he originally wanted, regardless of how I came to that conclusion. But he didn't ask, and I didn't want to tell anyway.

I rushed out into the streets, barely keeping track of where I was going as I was thinking about Sophia. Even as my connection to the bots fizzled out as we passed through the shield, I knew Sophia was in there... protected. From justice. Screw her, screw the PRT. Which cape was she? Most of the Wards were fairly well known; the PRT often used them in their campaign to promote themselves as the heroic option for all capes.

Hah. _Heroic_.

I wanted to be a hero. Not _their _definition of hero. A real one. To do that, I needed more bots. Better bots. I still needed money, and the Wards program wasn't going to provide it. I had to find a better way. Better than them. _I _was better than them.

* * *

**Author's note:** I think one of the reasons I got burned out from writing was that I had a few too many ideas. I published as I wrote, but when I suddenly had a better idea, I would have to go back and change things from 15 chapters before to make it work, and so on. Or I'd write myself into a corner. Then it would bug me for a long time and I'd end up feeling unsatisfied with the whole thing. Trying a different approach with this story, which is also the reason for the long hiatus from writing in general. Actually having the whole story fleshed out and publishing after final proofreading.

Note 2: that's what I get for writing and rewriting things three or four times. Thanks to the reviewers who pointed out the errors in this chapter, I did a few quick fixes to improve continuity/flow.


	3. Exploration 3

Exploration 3

I knew I was being a bad daughter. I knew I promised Dad I wouldn't be doing things like this. But I needed the money, and the PRT was no longer an option. I was going to stay safe. I wasn't going to make this a regular thing. And I was hurting the gangs, and that was a _good_ thing! All of it was just shallow self-justification, I knew. I was making excuses. But I was doing it anyway.

Needed? Some could say I didn't really _need_ the money, but you could make that argument for just about everything except the barest nutrition and enough clothing not to freeze. I had powers, talents that needed to be used. Badly. I had so many ideas for more developments on my tinkertech, I just couldn't stop.

Was this classified as addiction? Oh, the irony. Here I was, about to steal from drug dealers to fuel my own addiction to Tinkering.

I had bots. Lots of bots. They may have been tiny, but I think i was nearing the one-billion range at this point. I had enough to easily cover my face to hide my identity, with plenty left over to do the actual work. The good thing about long-range control of my little legion was that I could stay pretty far from the action. I could sit still in a safe, hidden area, I was able to use my bots to comb through several square miles. My bots were tiny enough that they could slip into nearly any building that wasn't under biohazard protections. Nobody would be able to trace things to me.

I had taken to changing my jogging route towards the sketchier side of town in the past week. I'd been sprinkling my robots around town, searching the buildings for gang activity or cash as I passed by, checking up on them on my way back home. Within a few days, I'd managed to use them to trace a small part of the drug trade near the Docks to a safehouse. I was pretty sure it belonged to the Merchants.

The Merchants were a pretty good target, to be honest. First off, they were the weakest of the three primary gangs in town. What they lacked in manpower they made up for in ruthlessness, amorality, and being batshit crazy. They were also the most predatory of all of them. The Azn Bad Boyz ostensibly gave "protection" to the Asians in town, mostly from the Empire. Empire 88 was just your standard neo-nazi white supremacist group, so most gang wars occurred between those two. Both of them were interested in maintaining some kind of recruitment and reputation among the civilian populace. Merchants? Not so much. They were just interested in selling as many drugs as possible. That meant they were willing to go to any length to get others addicted – including kids. It was easy to justify attacking them.

I certainly didn't feel bad about taking from them. Nobody would.

So here I was, a week after I'd nearly picked the junkyard clean of raw materials, lying on a rooftop several blocks away from the Merchants I was about to rob. My bots would be at the very limit of the distance I could control them, and I was hiding in the direction of the "safe" neighbourhoods so I could make a quick getaway.

There were no guards in this direction, no drug dealers near me. The building I was targeting had a stash of drugs and cash that I had seen a dealer come by on occasion and hand over cash. It wasn't as if it was normal to have posted guards outside anyway, that would just signal to other criminals that it was a place worth robbing.

Naturally, there were gang members guarding the place; they were hidden inside. But since this was the Merchants we were talking about, the guards were often users themselves. Some of them were too tweaked out to be decent guards against anything. None of them were in good enough condition to notice my swarm enter the building, an abandoned office complex. The poor condition of the building left plenty of alternate entrances for my bots to use.

I knew what my robots looked like to the naked eye if they were clumped up too much. I had them spread out, move along the cracks. Thankfully, the ceiling was made of the standard cheap ceiling panels with lots of holes in them. I kept most of my bots in there, where they wouldn't be noticed against the texture of the panels. The thin layer of robots spread out across the ceiling gave me a clearer picture of what I would be facing.

Five heavily-armed members of the gang. Two of them were snorting crap off the desk, one was asleep, and only two were actually doing any guarding. I kept watching for an hour, to see if they had any kind of rotation or pattern, but as far as I could tell, they didn't. A dealer showed up at some point to make another exchange of drugs for money, so I knew exactly where the stash was.

I had a plan in place already. My bots had scouted out the layout quickly, and I had spent the past half-hour fine-tuning my plan and waiting for the right time to strike. Given that they didn't seem to have any kind of pattern at all, the right time seemed to be any time.

Using the bots I left outdoors, I watched for any witnesses. All quiet on the streets outside. No other dealers were approaching to restock.

Millions of my bots descended on the trap door. It was a simple keyed padlock. Small enough that dozens of my bots could climb into the keyhole itself, using their bodies to push against the pins inside the tumbler mechanism. The padlock clicked open, and the swarm quietly removed it.

I kept watch on the Merchant guards. They hadn't heard a thing.

Thousands more bots clambered over each others' bodies to brace against the trap door, keeping it open just a sliver. Inside was just a shallow storage space, with several stacks and rolls of cash.

I made one more check on the guards. They weren't watching. The biggest hitch in this plan was the fact that a stack of cash moving itself across the floor was bound to draw attention, regardless of whether anyone actually saw my robots or not. I sent the money away from the entrance, to an unused bathroom. The room had no windows or entrances, but my bots could climb up the wall and carry the cash out the ventilation system.

I laughed, recalling all the movies I had seen where the hero climbed through the ductwork to save the day. No human-sized hero would have been able to fit in the half-foot-by-one-foot duct. Not without powers, anyway.

After I had taken most of the cash, I had the rest of the bots slice through the drug packages, spread it across the ground, mixing it with dust and dirt. I didn't want to _take_ the drugs, since I had no idea how to dispose of it properly, but at least I would taint their supply. As long as the Merchants actually cared about their product quality.

Out on the street, it was safer to get my millions of bots to work together and quickly move the money towards me. They crawled all over the cash, covering it up and making a blob-like mass as it moved down the alleys. The blob still had to hide behind trash cans and travel under dumpsters to avoid being seen by random passersby, but it was only minutes before I had the cash in hand.

Before the bots all crawled over me to go home, I realized a lot of them were filthy. Some of their sensors and tools were covered in dirt or slime or… other things they waded through to get to me. I had brought them here with them mostly in my pockets or coating my skin under baggy clothing. I hadn't thought far enough ahead about bringing them back.

"Eew. Guys, clean yourselves!" I said aloud. While they were busy scraping the grime off each other, I counted the cash. Two thousand bucks. Not bad for a night's haul. Not as much as I thought a drug house would have, but it was definitely one of the minor locations anyway.

I couldn't believe I had been so successful. I ran home with a renewed energy. Part of me was paranoid that they would suddenly realize and know exactly where I was. The other part of me was so happy that absolutely nothing had gone wrong at all, and I had gotten away with it and nobody was the wiser. I was a legitimate cape! I had powers, and I could _really_ use them.

Could I do this again? I was certain I could. But I would build more bots, better bots... and I'd be even more successful. I could do this. I wasn't a nobody. Emma could talk all the shit she wanted, but she couldn't take the Merchants' money right out from under their noses. She would piss her panties just walking near this neighbourhood. I was better than her. I was better than them, and I had proven it. And I wouldn't stop here. I couldn't stop here. I had grown past Taylor Hebert, school loser. I could be more, I could be better. I would build more, build better. I was Taylor Hebert, Tinker Cape.

* * *

Gold leaf! Industrial diamond powder! Polytetrafluoroethylene! I was so happy I was able to buy more specialized materials in bulk. I could make them even smaller, with improved cutting ability, improved efficiency… things were so much better with that haul. Some of it I got through mail-order, but I only used that for limited amounts of material that could be explained by my savings. I couldn't let my dad get too suspicious of packages that arrived at our door. The other materials I paid for in cash at local hardware and electronics stores.

I'd used up the money I'd stolen almost immediately on improving my swarm. Which meant I needed more. This wouldn't become a habit, right? It didn't matter. I was _inspired_, and I just needed a little more to build what had popped into my head. I had made a promise to myself, and I wouldn't stop. I had grown past the old, helpless Taylor, and I would be a cape. A powerful cape.

The best thing, though, was a bit of silver and brass. The materials I needed to fix mom's flute.

My bots couldn't rebuild it completely right now. I would need to be able to do some kind of precision welding in order to get the mangled thing back into shape. But I _could_ design bots that were more capable. Ideas for micro-plasma cutters, heat-resistant friction welding... ideas kept on coming.

All throughout the week at school, I couldn't stop designing and planning, sketching ideas down into the margins of my notebooks. What I needed and how to get it. Sure, the terrible trio was still around, but they didn't _matter_ that much any more. Sure, I would still have to teach them a lesson, but the school administration would just punish me for it. They would take my bullies' word over mine. And if I did something to Sophia, it would bring the Protectorate down on me.

At least I had something else to concentrate on. I could focus on making better bots. I could fix Mom's flute with my power eventually.

My robots were mostly keeping me safe from my bullies anyway, and I wasn't stopping my campaign of "misfortune" on them, at least. Now that I knew that Sophia Hess was Shadow Stalker, it made so much more sense how my homework kept getting stolen. They hadn't figured out my locker combination. She just used her powers to reach straight through my locker door. I hadn't trusted my locker for months, but knowing exactly how she did it explained so much more.

Stupid Hess, she could barely manage a passing grade without taking my homework for herself.

Well, I could make things even worse for her. Knowing her power let me lay a trap for it.

I'd taken to making multiple copies of my homework. I kept my bots on them, some of them holding bits of pencil lead. A copy in my locker, one in my binder, one in my pocket. Whichever copy Sophia tried to steal, I'd just use my bots to alter my answers so they would be all wrong before she grabbed it. I'd just let Sophia take it, thinking she'd won. She wasn't dumb enough, or skilled enough, to try to steal the copy right in my pocket, so I usually ended up handing that copy in.

Yes, I knew it was a convoluted plan. But Winslow High was a school with stupid administration and stupid rules, one of which was that it was against the rules to take your backpack to class. Yes, I went to a school where backpacks were against the rules. I couldn't just keep my homework with me under my watchful eye all day. Something about hidden weapons and drugs and gang wars…

At least that played to my advantage right now.

I had an even better advantage in science class. We were allowed to use calculators for science tests. It only took a few tiny robots to cause some short-circuits and mess up Sophia, Emma, and Madison's calculators.

Revenge was pretty sweet. Still working on that whole "justice" thing, though.

* * *

Focusing on Tinkering and what would help me improve was what got me through the week, stopping me from doing something rash against the trio. School simply mattered less to me. It wasn't going to help me through life, my powers were. While my grades were improving incrementally, my bot designs were improving dramatically. The bots were slightly smaller, I could see through them better, they were more versatile, I could build them faster... if I could afford to buy the raw materials. I was short on cash again.

Another weekend meant another Merchant base. This one was somewhere on the border of the Docks and the Trainyard. It was much larger, but more sparsely guarded. I thought it would make it a better target. Not so much, as I discovered.

Like before, I was keeping a safe distance from my target. Slipping in was even easier, with fewer guards covering a larger area. The only issue was that it was such a wide-open space with very little cover or hiding places. Finding the stash took longer; apparently they did less business at this location. It wasn't an issue to me; I basically took a nap from a safe distance while I watched them. Getting at the actual money was no issue. With my newer, diamond-hard cutting tips, grinding through the locks was simple.

Getting the money back to me was the problem.

The warehouse was wide-open. The guards weren't completely high like at the office. It was _really_ hard trying to get the money to move across the floor to the nearest exit without being seen. It was agonizingly slow. My robots, even if they covered the money, didn't blend into the ground. They tended to form a flat grey blob, which stood out against the darker brown-black floor of the warehouse.

I'd only managed to steal about $600 before one of the guards noticed the broken lock, and raised the alarm. Thankfully, I'd seen him walking towards the stash and dispersed my bots early, so they had no clue how the theft had happened. Spread apart, the bots looked like little more than dust. And in the dirty warehouse, they were completely invisible.

Still, it felt like a failure. Chalk that up as a lesson learned through experience. I'd be getting less sleep tonight, double the work for less than a third of the money. I needed to be better. I couldn't peak here. My problem was that my bots had been too visible; I needed to find a way to make them invisible. Or at least, harder to spot.

* * *

I ended up spending the cash on some paint. I chose the primary pigments – cyan, yellow, and magenta, as well as a bit of black and white. I ordered most of my bots dip parts of their bodies in paint. Nothing over the mechanical moving bits, of course. It took time to do it properly, but the good thing was that I could do a billion bots at a time.

It was a grey blob before, and after I was done, I still had a grey blob. But now, when I told the right ones to move to the outside of the blob, I could change its colour. Success! The paint wasn't exactly the highest quality, nor was the entire bot's body covered, since I didn't want paint to gum up their movement. So I couldn't recreate perfect pictures. But it definitely was better than a distinct grey blob.

I had a few newspapers and magazines to use for practice. Up close, it was obvious how the pictures were printed, and I had my bots copy the patterns until I was used to getting the colors right. Copying a pre-existing picture that used the exact same pigments as my bots was the easy part. Getting them to copy something in real life was harder.

I spent the next half-hour trying to get my main blob to copy the carpet pattern in the living room.

"Hey, Taylor! What are you working on now?"

I didn't even realize how much time I had spent practicing the camouflage. Dad had already gotten back from work. "Hi, dad! I was just working on ca-" Crap, I couldn't tell him that I was working on camouflage. That sounded suspiciously like cape business. "-camera possibilities? I mean, I think I have a distributed camera working already, and this way they can display the picture they took, like a digital camera!"

I never really explained to my dad that I could already see everything they saw in my own mind. Having some sort of display was completely pointless for me, and a total lie to my father. I felt guilty doing it, but I couldn't take that back. I continued with the lie by having my blob of robots flatten out into a square. I had them form a picture of dad from their perspective on the ground. The colours were slightly off and the image was kind of grainy, but even I was impressed with myself by the result.

"Neat. So you're planning on making a… display out of them? Can you do video?"

I hadn't tried. I turned on the TV and tried to copy what was happening on screen.

I failed miserably. I couldn't copy video fast enough. The bots would have to crawl over each other ridiculously fast to constantly change the colour of the blob as a whole, nowhere near fast enough to make for smooth video.

"Nope," I said. My Tinkering immediately started thinking of solutions to make it possible. If I could make smooth video, I could coat myself and walk around like a makeshift cloaking system. But it would still be flawed, only work from a single angle... For now, it would only hide me if I was sitting still for a long time.

Dad patted me on the shoulder. "It's a great effort, Taylor. I'm sure you'll be able to do anything you put your mind to, and I'll be behind you all the way. Come on, let's take a break. You need to go to bed soon; you've got school tomorrow."

* * *

"Hebert. You're not getting away this time."

Damn. Mr. Gladly had left the classroom right at the end of the class for some reason, which left the trio free to corner me. I knew this was coming eventually; all their attempts at bullying me had basically fizzled out for the past few weeks. I had never left them with a chance to catch me alone. I just didn't anticipate Mr. Gladly leaving the classroom today before the students did.

"What do you want, Sophia? Are you trying to steal my homework again? Can't you pass without me doing the work for you?" I said loudly. Twice I had seen Sophia's homework returned with a big fat F on them. Oh, _that_ had been delicious. I savored that memory, especially the second time when Sophia had seen my homework returned with a perfect score. At least she learned quickly; her attempts at stealing my homework completely stopped after those two failures.

"Shut the fuck up, Hebert. We know you're behind it." Sophia shoved me against the wall. For a second, I was afraid she was going to kill or seriously injure me. I know Shadow Stalker had been an independent cape, one that had nearly killed a few people in her heroics. But that would be too stupid to do right now, even for her. I watched as other students kept their heads down and ignored us as they left class. Other girls who sucked up to the pretty and popular trio, snickered as they walked by.

"Behind what? You stealing my homework? I'm pretty sure that was all you."

"Keep pretending, Hebert. Your act isn't fooling anyone. All you've been doing is running away from us. You're weak, and we're going to remind you who your betters are."

The classroom was empty except for the four of us. Madison closed the door. While Sophia kept me pinned to the wall, Emma approached me with a pair of scissors.

"I know you've always loved your hair, Taylor. But it doesn't make up for how ugly the rest of your body is. Who are you trying to impress? It's not like you'll ever get a boyfriend. We're just helping you keep things realistic." I knew Emma was the one who came up with the idea of dumping cranberry juice or pencil shavings in my hair. But those washed out with enough shampoo. This was a line they shouldn't have crossed.

I screamed and kicked. Sophia was really strong. Made sense if she was on the track team _and_ trained with the Wards. It wasn't enough, since she was expecting me to struggle and I'm sure she dealt with struggling victims before. I commanded the bots I had hidden on her to slice through her skin.

The sting made her flinch, probably more due to surprise than actual pain. But it was enough, I managed to shove her away. I shoulder-checked Madison and ran straight for the door. I didn't bother going to afternoon classes that day.

* * *

"Taylor Hebert. Do you know why you're here?" Principal Blackwell said to me.

It wasn't the first time I'd been here. "Does it matter? You never believe me anyway."

The principal frowned at me with an exasperated look. She looked like she was smelling a rodent and just wanted me gone. "You've been accused of violence against Sophia Hess and Madison Clements. They said you scratched, kicked, and shoved them."

"It was self-defense. They had me pinned to a wall and they were going to hurt me. Emma was coming at me with a pair of scissors."

"They told me nothing of the sort. Do you have any proof?"

I rolled my eyes. "So now you expect me to have a camera recording literally every minute of my life at Winslow?" Blackwell may as well be the fourth bully. She acted against me just as harshly, if not more, than the trio themselves. "If being tossed into a dumpster two months ago wasn't enough proof that I'm being bullied, I don't think anything will be."

"Miss Hebert, we cannot condone violence at Winslow-"

"So why are they getting away with shoving me and threatening me with scissors?" I interrupted.

"You should have called for a teacher for help."

I gawked at her. I wasn't sure if she took sick pleasure in this or if she was really just that stupid. "So you're telling me… that, while I was pinned to a wall, in an empty classroom, outnumbered three to one, I should have just… shouted out for a teacher and waited? While I let them to whatever they wanted to me?"

"Rather than resorting to violence..." Blackwell began.

"Did you miss the part where I WAS PINNED TO THE WALL?" I shouted, completely losing my temper.

"Miss Hebert, do NOT use that tone of voice against me! You're suspended for the rest of the week, and your father will be informed of this."

If there was any sign that there was nothing at this school for me, this was it. I could do more away from school than in it. If they wouldn't accept anything less than video evidence…

A thought struck me.

This suspension was the perfect alibi. If they would never do anything for me without solid proof, maybe they couldn't do anything against me when I had a solid alibi, sitting at home with my dad or whatnot. Even the library was within range of school; the librarian would be my witness while I sat there all day, reading and studying like a good girl.

Diamond coated micro-blades had no trouble cutting hair. How many bots did I have on each of my bullies? I could sense roughly a hundred or so. That was fine. They were smaller than ticks and lice; they could hide in the girls' hair and nobody would ever find them. It took four to five bots working together to cut each strand. Maybe slow and gradual was better. They wouldn't notice it until it was too late. I hate to admit it, but Sophia was right. Maybe I was just running away from them.

So maybe I'd do a whole lot more than just avoid them. It was clear that justice would never come; not with Blackwell in place, not while I was still stuck at that school. Perhaps some laser-guided karma was the closest thing to justice that I would get.

* * *

Dad was disappointed when he heard the news, but he was far more concerned with my well-being. Admitting to him that I was still being bullied, especially after the dumpster incident, was hard. But he could see that I was working diligently at home, learning things on my own from computer science and engineering textbooks, which made it easier to accept that I was flourishing much more at home than at school.

Still, he wanted me to get my high school diploma. Winslow was the only choice. Arcadia had a huge waiting list and was on the… richer side of town. So a much longer commute. Immaculata was a private school, far too expensive anyways. I looked for other options, but for now, I'd still be going to Winslow for the foreseeable future.

After my suspension was over, of course. I was taking advantage of the days off as much as I could. Yes, revenge was ongoing. The hair-cutting was going slowly. My bots would hide near the roots of the girls' heads, not enough to tickle the scalp, and in low enough numbers that they wouldn't notice. Deep enough that they wouldn't get washed out easily. They sliced through just enough that it wouldn't fall out during class, but maybe they'd lose a bunch when they showered and combed. Over the course of the next few days, though, they would definitely end up sporting very different hairdos. I made sure to have the bots leave them before they walked out of my range; I didn't want to leave any evidence.

I had hours and hours to work on my bots every day this week, instead of just a bit of time before and after dinner during school days. Even though I was short on raw materials, I could at least refine them, test cheaper alternative materials, until I managed to get more money. I might have to recycle some of my older bots to make the new ones, but at least I had a lot to work with. I had several billion now, enough to cover my entire body for protection _and_ plenty left over for experimentation.

Each day of my suspension, I would start it off the same way. I'd go to the library when everyone else was going to school. I brought some bots and raw materials from home, so I could produce more bots while I was sitting there, and placed them hidden in the alleyway behind the library. I said hello to the librarian, making sure she saw me. I grabbed a book, usually something non-fiction like robotics or biology. Then I'd sit in one of the armchairs that was in clear view of the librarian's desk.

The bots that I had left at school would wait until my bullies arrived. Some of them lay in wait at their lockers, others in my locker, and so on. I had a small number spread throughout the school building anyway, hiding on ceiling tiles, to keep watch on the situation. And stealing supplies to create more bots.

At the beginning of the day, a few bots would work their way onto their bodies and work their way up to the scalp. Slowly but surely, they would cut away at a few hairs at a time until the end of the day, where they would retreat to their hiding places again.

Snip snip. So my revenge began, one hair at a time.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Happy extra hour of sleep day!


	4. Interlude 1: Lisa

Interlude 1: Lisa

Many people could say they hated their boss. It wasn't an uncommon sentiment, especially when the economy was down in the dumps. Some people were so desperate for work that they took any job offer, no matter how sketchy it was. People took whatever abuse their bosses dealt out under the threat of being fired. They were too afraid to quit because they couldn't be sure if they could ever find work again.

Lisa was in a similar predicament. She, too, hated her boss. She, too, was afraid she wouldn't be able to find work again if she tried to quit. What most other people couldn't say, though, was that they hated their bosses because they would be murdered if she tried to quit. And it was very difficult to look for alternative employment with a bullet in your brain.

That being said, though, her boss at least paid very well. Still, she didn't mind trying to get a little minor revenge wherever she could. Nothing overt, of course. Her boss dealt with sabotage the same way he dealt with betrayal. Murder with a good helping of torture.

At least, that was what her power told her. Her boss was a narcissistic psychopath; she could have figured that much out without her power. Sadism was par for the course with people like him, as well as being easily slighted. It was difficult to get the cues over the phone, but her power did manage to tell her that much. She was walking a very fine line.

One thing she would never do, however, was submit.

The good thing was that he was level-headed enough to tolerate minor failures. Whatever his grand plan was, at least she could try to slow him down from the inside.

Her current mission? Recruitment. Expand and improve her team. The people Lisa had helped recruit so far seemed haphazard. She'd intentionally done a slightly worse job than she could have. Their heavy hitter, Bitch, didn't even have direct control over her living weapons, and she was maladjusted and antisocial, but powerful. Even better than Lisa had anticipated. Lisa recruited her in favour of Serratus, an independent who could form lizardlike scales all over his skin, a Changer-Brute who was basically a discount Hookwolf.

Grue was a bit of a necessity, Lisa needed a level head and possible ally within the team. Bitch didn't like her and it was extremely difficult to convince her to do anything, regardless of how well-reasoned Lisa tried to be. Bitch wasn't exactly dumb, but she had relatively short-term outlook on life and deferred to strength. Lisa, being relatively short and barely over a hundred pounds soaking wet, was not the type that Bitch normally listened to. Grue was that person. Tall and nearly two hundred pounds of lean muscle, Grue _looked_ like he should be the heavyweight of the team, although he was actually primarily the support cape.

Regent, on the other hand, filled a "sniper" role on the team. He certainly wouldn't have been the boss's ideal pick. His power was weak, and he had little to contribute to a large fight that a normal person holding a taser couldn't. Though with a bit of luck, good timing, and careful targeting, he could make a huge difference, taking out large threats. That wasn't really the issue with him, though.

The issue was that he was a lazy slob who took quite a bit of money to motivate.

Lisa liked Regent for that reason. He wasn't the best, and he gave her more reason to bleed her boss for more money. Not that her boss seemed to be running short on cash any time soon. She knew how to use Regent to full effectiveness to prove her own worth, but she knew Regent himself wasn't too interested in self-improvement. If she had put in a proper effort in recruiting she might have tried to get Manicurse on the team or something, but combine her and Grue and they might have been a bit too gung-ho and start working for her boss directly.

Lisa needed to stay as the go-between, not just to keep a bit of power over her team, but also to ensure they never felt too sympathetic to her boss. If... _when_ she cut ties, she wanted to take the team with her.

That was harder said than done, of course. The boss would never welcome anyone without some additional insurance. Whether it was debt, family, warrants... he always needed some additional collateral. If all else failed, a gun to the head always worked. Like it had with Lisa.

The boss had just told them about another new Cape that had arrived in Brockton Bay – Spitfire. Another potential heavy hitter, one that was more precise and had better control than Bitch and her dogs. She would definitely be a big boon to the team – and her boss. The types of jobs they'd be able to do if she signed on would expand dramatically.

Which is why Lisa really didn't want to succeed.

"Where's the mark, Tattletale?" Grue asked.

"Let me talk to her alone first," Lisa said. "You know, just a little girl talk."

Lisa couldn't see Grue's face through his skull-patterned motorcycle helmet, but she could still tell he had an eyebrow raised. "You know she's got a strong power. I heard she melted through metal and concrete during her trigger. She could incinerate you in a second if she wanted to. You need backup."

"I'll be fine. Trust me."

Lisa donned her mask and walked out of the alley to the dimly-lit street. She approached a slim figure wearing a modified gas-mask.

"You must be Tattletale." The voice was heavily muffled by the mask but still identifiable as a young woman. Probably a similar age as her.

"Right in one. Spitfire?"

"I suppose that's as good a name as any," came the reply.

"If you don't like the name, you'd better make some noise and establish your reputation before the PRT name sticks," Tattletale suggested.

She received a shrug in response. "You promised me money. Let's see it."

Lisa pulled out a small envelope. "Five hundred. Just hear me out and it's yours."

Spitfire grabbed the envelope and crossed her arms impatiently. "Well?"

"Okay, so maybe you already know, maybe not. But new capes don't last on their own. They need support. You're not looking to join the Wards, or New Wave-"

Spitfire snorted in disgust.

"Yeah, exactly. And I'm guessing you're here because you turned down a Nazi invitation..."

Lisa didn't mention the fact that she probably could have joined the Azn Bad Boys, despite being neither an Asian nor a boy. The ABB were actually far less discriminatory than their name suggested, but she didn't want Spitfire to feel like she had more options.

"Well, we, as in the Undersiders, could definitely use you. We keep to low-level stuff, mostly stealing from the other gangs. Eight jobs so far, one hundred percent success rate. Not to mention the fact that we've got a backer who's willing to help pay for equipment or bonuses, depending on the job. Is that jacket fireproof?"

Spitfire looked down at herself. "No."

"Our boss would probably be willing to fix that. Wouldn't want to set yourself on fire with your own power, would you?"

"I'm fireproof, anyway. Not a problem."

Lisa smirked. "I suppose, if you enjoy streaking after a job. At least Grue can hide you if you have a major wardrobe malfunction."

"Alright, good point. When do we start?"

"How about tonight? We've got an eye on a Merchant distribution center. Mid-tier, probably none of their capes, but a bunch of guys with guns. We get in there, steal the cash, get out. Quick and easy, we can probably walk out with two grand each. You in?"

"Let's do it."

* * *

"I distinctly recall you saying two grand each," Spitfire said. "Not two grand total."

Lisa herself had been puzzled. Her power wasn't infallible, but she had estimated that there would be closer to ten grand being stored there, not two. And less resistance, too. It was supposed to be a good intro run for a new member, to shake out how well they would work with the team. She hadn't heard any news of changes to the Merchants' movements or strategy.

_Merchants recently targeted. More frequent collection. Reduced inventory at peripheral locations. Moved cash to Squealer's workshop. Increased security._ Her power managed to appraise the situation with the Merchants. _After_ the job had been done, of course.

Skidmark and Squealer must have moved the money out of that location last night. No wonder they were low. The increased security was annoying, but not too much of a problem.

Spitfire had definitely done well for herself, spitting out napalm hot enough to melt through cinderblock walls. She also had enough control to give a few of the Merchants some nasty but not life-threatening burns. A heavy hitter with a power that also had some utility, and good precision, which would only get better with practice.

Grue had to use his darkness more extensively, which stopped _most_ of the Merchant guards from firing wildly without being able to aim. Even so, there were some close calls, if Regent hadn't been there. Even the tweaked-out gangbangers could tell they were outmatched and gave up, though not before they called for reinforcements.

In short, Spitfire was a strong addition to the team, one which would allow the boss to take bigger and riskier jobs. As much as Lisa would like the extra money that harder jobs would entail, her boss would undoubtedly be profiting more. As mysterious as his orders were sometimes, he obviously didn't pay for jobs that weren't worth the cost to him. And recruiting Spitfire would accelerate whatever plans he had too quickly for Lisa's tastes.

"Look, it was still easy money, right? You get to keep the five hundred and your share either way," Lisa finally responded unapologetically. At least she could use this situation to her advantage.

"And you think we'll get away clean?" she responded. "We're still in Merchant territory." Add to the fact that they were all still in costume, not trusting each other enough to unmask, also meant they were easy to find. Every squeal of tires could have been the Merchants searching for them.

"Bitch is on her way," Grue said. "She's our quick getaway."

The girl was hard to miss. Or, rather, her three massive dogs. Spitfire nearly attacked in surprise and fear, held back only by Grue's calming hand.

"Who's this?" Bitch asked as she jumped off Judas.

"Our new recruit," Grue said. "Come on, get us outta here."

"She looks weak." Bitch walked straight up to Spitfire and stared her down. Being a taller, butch girl, she easily had fifty pounds of muscle over Spitfire. She shoved the girl back, who stumbled into Angelica.

The massive dog snarled and snapped at her. Spitfire, in her panic, used her power and shot a jet of napalm at the dog. Angelica yelped as the liquid burned through her exoskeleton.

Bitch screamed and went to throw a punch at Spitfire, only to be held back by Grue. "The FUCK! Don't hurt my dogs!"

Spitfire looked like she was ready to fight this time. "Fuck you, I thought you were supposed to be on the same team?"

"Stop it, Bitch!"

"She attacked Angelica!"

"It attacked me first!"

"If she was attacking, you'd already be dead! That was just a warning! Why the fuck would you..."

"Damnit, Bitch, stop! We need to get out of here," Grue said. He flooded the area in darkness, which hid them and muffled the sound slightly, but even then they would be attracting the attention of any Merchant gang members in the area.

"She ain't touching my dogs," Bitch spat.

"Like I'd want to. Fuck this, I'm not joining a team with this psycho bitch," Spitfire shouted back. "Gimme my money, and I'm out of here."

"I told you guys I didn't want anyone else on the team," Bitch yelled.

"We voted on it, three to one. That's not how voting works, Bitch," Grue said, still holding her back.

Regent was just sitting back and laughing.

Lisa quickly counted out the Spitfire's take and gave it to her. "Sorry about this. Bitch can be tough to get used to. If you're still looking for a team, I think Faultline might be hiring," she whispered.

As she watched the new cape walk away, she had to suppress her smirk. One failure for the boss, courtesy of Bitch. A perfectly reasonable explanation. She wondered why the boss didn't tell her to get rid of the antisocial girl, but that would mean she would need to recruit another heavy hitter.

Maybe she'd have to recruit the cape that managed to steal from the Merchants.

_Solo cape. New cape. Multiple locations hit with no evidence left behind._ Whoever this cape was that had set off the Merchants, her power told her they were strong. Stealth-focused, maybe? Not enough evidence to tell. However their powers worked, they had managed to do solo what it took most of the Undersiders to do. No doubt the boss would want her to recruit them, whenever they showed up.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Short chapter today, but I'll upload another short-ish chapter sooner


	5. Excursion 1

Excursion 1

It was only my third day of my suspension, and I'd already located a major storehouse of the Merchants again. This time, I would be hitting the largest stash of cash I'd encountered yet. There were more guards, but I had also changed the way I stole the money. It was only possible because I'd scouted out this base before. They had more guards than the other ones, and the building itself was larger too. The main storeroom wasn't sealed tight like a safe. It was just a regular door with some gaps, several locks, and a few dedicated guards standing at the door. I would never be able to pick the lock without someone noticing, but in this case, I didn't have to. I would just need more bots.

I had a plan for a new way to get the money out of the building without being noticed. Unfortunately, even though I had a hundred times more bots than my last outing, I still needed to be a lot closer because of how I was using them. I knew I was taking a big risk, but at the same time, I made up for it by being camouflaged, so I was less likely to get caught in the first place.

And by "closer" I meant literally across the street. Actually, the street was too far away; I was across the alleyway. I scouted ahead and hid behind a dumpster. I kept a close watch on all the guards that patrolled around the building, and laid down a trail of robots across the alleyway when nobody was looking. The smell was foul, and even though I had a layer of bots keeping me away from the actual garbage, it still felt icky.

Come on, Taylor. What kind of hero would you be if getting grossed out a bit stopped you?

More bots crawled up and over my body, covering everything. Using the bots just across the street, I watched myself disappear as I adjusted the colour and texture until I basically looked like another garbage bag, blending in with my surroundings. It wouldn't fool anyone who was looking closely, but nobody was taking their time to study piles of garbage in dark alleys at night anyway.

Having settled myself in, I extended and rearranged the trail of bots towards the Merchant building. It was more than just a lineup. I arranged them so that the trail was almost exactly the width of a dollar bill and only four bots thick. That left it at half a millimeter of thickness. I brought some money with me just to check, in fact. I slid the bill into my bot trail, right in the middle. The robots acted like a conveyor belt, sliding the money flat against the ground with a layer of bots on the outside to both move it and hide it. It shot towards the building I was about to rob. I told the bots to bring my money back. They did it quickly and precisely.

I had my camouflaged cash conveyor belt. Now to extend it all the way to the actual piles of cash.

From the alleyway, there weren't many options for entry. Some of the bots I had inside were already scouting the place; I knew which direction I had to direct the bot trail. I did find a vent; I just had to sabotage and break the fan inside of it so the trail of bots remained continuous. Inside the vent, I didn't need to worry about being seen; I could build up my bots as quickly as I wanted.

Being inside the warehouse itself was an entirely different story. Multiple guards patrolled the place. At no point was I ever _guaranteed_ to be unseen; I had to work very slowly and hope nobody noticed my bots before I got the camouflage colours right.

I took nearly _two hours_ to slowly build up a thin, flat trail of robots inside the base. I had to adjust the outer layer to match several different colours between the interior paint and the patterns on the ground. I slowly inched the trail further and further into the base, keeping behind furniture and staying in cover as much as I could. I took the time to ensure that the colour was perfectly matched, so nobody would be able to notice at a glance.

I would hold my breath every time a guard walked nearby. Even though I kept my bots close to the wall, the interior was pretty sparse with very little cover to hide my bots behind. Every few minutes, someone would walk perilously close and I had to slow down the construction of my conveyor belt.

By far, the last part was the hardest. The storeroom had no less than three guards watching it at all times. Getting my bots past them was agonizingly slow. There was no way to get into the room without passing my bots within a foot of where they stood. I had to keep track of when they looked in the other direction and advancing millimeters at a time. Patience was key. But once I was actually inside the storeroom, I was golden.

The room my bots saw was dimly lit with a single lightbulb. Huge stacks of money were piled to the left; drugs were on the right. There was more of both than I had ever seen in my life; there must have been millions in there. The money wasn't organized very well; everything from rolls of bills held together with rubber bands to clean stacks with official-looking straps. I was surprised by how open everything was; I was expecting a safe for the money or something.

Then again, this was the Merchants we were talking about. They tended to keep things simple. They didn't buy complex security systems, they just threw more people and guns at the problem. They didn't have any ideology or philosophy, they just traded drugs for money to whoever would buy.

Thank goodness I hadn't underestimated the distance. I had used up over ninety percent of the bots I had brought with me today to build the cash conveyor. I was worried I would have to sacrifice some of the bots that were protecting me personally to finish it. Thankfully, I still had a hundred million bots remaining. All the extra bots I could spare flooded the interior of the storeroom.

They got to work cutting through the wads of cash, opening them up and laying the bills out flat. Each bill was fed through my robotic conveyor belt, ferrying them through the long path through the warehouse until they reached me. Bill after bill shot out into my hands, flowed towards me like malfunctioning ATM. It was glorious. And here I was, sitting here looking like I was part of trash.

I just hoped Emma and Sophia – _Shadow fucking Stalker_, I reminded myself – didn't see me right now. They'd probably make fun of me about being garbage or something again. But did I really care? Neither of them knew the first thing about being a hero.

A thick wad of cash was already building up in my hands when I noticed someone approaching the storeroom. I made all my robots stop. The ones in the storehouse all dropped to the ground and covered the wads of cash I had already opened, camouflaging themselves with the floor and hiding behind whatever cover was nearby. I didn't have enough time to evacuate all of them without being noticed, so I just held still and hoped that hiding was enough.

I was betting on the fact that the original pile of money had been so messy that they weren't going to notice a bit of it missing. Or that they hadn't chosen this moment to do some accounting.

They opened up the storeroom. Cash was handed over, and drugs were taken. It was just another dealer picking up supply. I breathed a sigh of relief. Good thing the drugs were on the other side of the room, they didn't walk too close to my money-funneling system. The dim light made it harder to see. The guard stood around counting the money, put a rubber band over it, and tossed it into the pile. He handed the dealer a few small ziplock bags of product, and they were on their way. Both of them had looked pretty tired and not in the state to notice minor details. All of it worked to my advantage.

After they locked the door again, I got back to work. I debated whether or not I should keep going. That had been a close call, but nobody had noticed anything. I'd still only taken a small fraction of their cash, probably around ten thousand by now, but I could get more before it became obvious.

So I elected to keep going. I'd just fill up the pockets of my cargo pants and go. As much as I could carry. Minute after minute, I was trying to keep an eye on the guards.

I was almost done when I heard the roar of a powerful engine, enough to shake my actual body in the other building. The main loading bay door of the warehouse opened. Before I could start evacuating my bots, a giant monster-truck sized machine just _appeared_ in the warehouse. Even while idling, the engine let out a deep, ground-shaking rumble as it sat there.

How the hell had I not been able to notice it before? Something that huge, I should have been able to see, and hear, from blocks away! It certainly hadn't teleported, but it did have some kind of cloaking device. Far more advanced camouflage than what my bots were doing right now. I literally didn't see a fifteen-foot tall pickup drive into the building.

Shit. Shit. I had to get away from there as fast as possible. That truck was obviously Tinker-tech. If the cloaking system was that good, I didn't want to figure out what the weapon systems were like. It also meant Squealer, the Merchants' resident Tinker, was here. And where Squealer was, her boyfriend Skidmark was too.

I had to force myself to snap out of my Tinker inspiration moment. Now was not the time. I saw both Squealer and Skidmark drop down from the vehicle. My bots had stopped collecting cash and were already in full retreat. The last of the cash and most of my robots were already funneling themselves back to me, but dismantling the cash-conveyor trail was slow going. Camouflaged as it was, when I removed the camouflage it would be at its most visible.

"Hey, fuckers! I'm here to check if you shitheads are doing your job! We've been robbed a few times and there ain't any heads rolling yet, so we're goin' around to all the bases and doin' some inventory check!" Skidmark yelled as he went up to the guards in the storage room.

"Boss. There's been nobody here except our customers," one of the guards said. "It's still locked. Nothing's been cut."

"Did I fucking stutter? Open it up anyway!" Skidmark yelled.

The guards obediently unlocked the room. While everyone's focus was on them, I retracted my bots more quickly. I _really_ didn't want to leave any traces behind, especially not with another Tinker. I didn't know if Squealer was capable of figuring out how my bots worked, and I didn't want to risk it and possibly blow my whole identity and powerset.

On the other hand, _giant laser cannons_.

The bots that were furthest away, I just dispersed. Made them mix in with just the dirt and dust. I could come back and retrieve them a few days later.

A few seconds later Skidmark came stomping out. "What the hell is this?" he yelled. Ripped plastic bags, cut currency straps, and other things I'd left behind were in his hands. "Who the fuck got in here? What the fuck were you doing, sucking each other's cocks?"

The guard was instantly on the defensive. I didn't keep any bots around to keep watch, I was getting out of there. I heard a lot of bangs, painful screaming, and angry yelling. People were getting thrown, boxes and crates were being toppled, and guns were being loaded. I could feel the vibrations as dozens of feet started running. I gathered all my robots around my body and started speedwalking away.

Damn, I should have started evacuating ten minutes ago. I got a bit too greedy. I kept my head down, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible despite cargo pants completely stuffed with cash.

The roar of the monster truck made me start running. It was so loud and so deep I could feel it rattle my body, but I couldn't tell what direction they were coming from. All of a sudden, the roar just... disappeared. FUCK. There was now an invisible monster truck with a giant laser cannon on the lookout for me.

I only moved more quickly and hoped they didn't notice. "Round up everyone on the block! They might still be nearby!" I couldn't tell if Skidmark was a genius or lucky or so-stupid-he's-actually-brilliant. He didn't know when the robbery happened; in any other situation I could have been miles away at home. Then again, he _was_ crazy and violent, maybe he just wanted to shoot whoever he could find to let out his frustrations.

Which happened to be me.

I could only hope that my daily training was paying off. I was certain I could outrun the Merchants carrying guns. I couldn't outrun a bullet. When I heard guards yelling at a distance, I ran faster. When I heard them shooting, I had to change tactics. I wasn't sure who they were aiming for, I could only hope for the best as I tried to get far enough away from their dragnet. They were just crazy enough to shoot whatever they saw moving.

I had to find a hiding place, and fast. Unfortunately, with all of them walking through the alleys, it left the obvious hiding places out of the question. I think they must have been rounding up and shaking down every homeless person they saw there. I didn't have time to climb up an emergency escape to a roof, either.

I didn't hear the monster truck, but I did hear the sound of a parked car getting crushed. I'd never been to a monster truck rally but I'd seen enough commercials for them to know what the sounds were. Crunching metal, shattering glass, the sound of a car alarm going off for all of two seconds before dying in a pathetic wail. Everything except the sound of the monster truck itself.

Just my luck. I bet Squealer picked a random direction and it just so happened to be the way I was going. I definitely couldn't outrun a vehicle, so I had to find a place to hide _fast_. One of the streetlights had gone out, and that portion of the block was extra-dark. I stopped there and ducked into a storefront. I used my swarm of bots to cover me and blend me into the sidewalk. In the middle of the night, under poor streetlight, the cheap disguise was enough. I hoped.

They were shooting randomly into the street now. I could hear bullets hit the ground, the walls, and even break some windows. Fuck, the Merchants were insane. Drugged out and insane. I had to count myself lucky that I wasn't hit by a stray bullet as I lay on the ground, as tight to the wall as I could manage.

I lay perfectly still until they had passed. I held my breath, as I wasn't completely sure when Squealer had actually driven by. Most of the violent druggies stumbled past and went around the block. Half of me wanted to get up right away and start running, the other half wanted to stay here until dawn.

I settled for something halfway and waited until all the shouting and gunfire trailed off into the distance, and ran home as fast as I could while avoiding the streetlights.

That definitely had to change. I didn't want to die to some drugged-out, gun-happy gangbanger who happened to get lucky. Camouflage wasn't enough, I needed to armour myself.

* * *

For once, instead of building smaller bots, I actually went with something bigger. The good thing was that, from the junkyard, steel was cheap. I had mostly abandoned that place as a source of materials because the types of steel that remained had mostly rusted or weren't good for the bots I made; it wasn't ductile enough.

Now I had found a new use for it.

I could cut out rice-grain sized shards of metal. These micro-plates had almost no use for my bots by themselves; they had to be attached to a few existing bots. But they would be the basis of my armour plating, multiple layers of these metallic scales like sharkskin. It was soft, flexible, and I could cover myself as needed. These robots were also far bigger than the ones I had worked on before, and far less versatile. They had one job, and one job only – protect me. My mite-sized bots would still be doing most of the real work.

I tested how strong my armour-bots were. I grabbed a sledgehammer and made them form a protective dome on the floor like a helmet. I struck it as hard as I could.

Huh. It held pretty well. I just had to make sure the inner layers of bots formed a springy cushion.

Time to test it with stabbing. Same results, naturally. The armour-bots were geared for strength, locking tight against each other and presenting the metal scale outside. There were no gaps for a knife to penetrate.

I didn't have a gun to test it against bullets. I just taped a screw to the end of the sledgehammer. If it could stop the force of a sledgehammer focused on to a narrow point, I figured it would be enough to stop a small-caliber bullet at least, maybe even an armor-piercing round.

The first time I tried it, the screw penetrated clean through. Failure. It also damaged the bots. It permanently mangled the metal scales on the impact site.

I got them to stack up into a double layer and tried again. Similar result. The outer layer was just as mangled as my first attempt. The second layer of bots also damaged, but not as much as the first. The force was still strong enough to sever their links to each other, opening up a hole.

I had them stack up into a triple layer of armour. This time, the final layer held. The bots still formed an unbroken mesh. The screw was being pushed back, even with the weight of the sledgehammer behind it. The third layer's bots were still slightly damaged. Their scales were bent out of shape and didn't interlock perfectly any more. So three layers of bots were needed to make a decent bulletproof shield.

It would take me a while to repair the damage, so I definitely couldn't risk getting shot in the same area twice quickly. Either I had to carry a large excess of armour-bots so that they could fill in holes quickly, or I had to depend on my stealth. Neither option was ideal, and while I had _some_ ideas for even better armour, those plans were too far in the future.

* * *

I had been so obsessed with my own safety after the frightening incident against the merchants that I had actually forgotten to count the money until now. Once I did, I realized I would have a lot of trouble hiding thirty thousand dollars from my father. Not just the cash. My dad wasn't stupid; he'd notice if massive volumes of materials somehow got into our house without explanation.

I also needed to deposit the money I made at the bank or something. Did they ask questions when a teenager deposited large piles of cash? Probably. I would have to pretend I got a part time job or something and deposit it in regular chunks.

For now, though, I couldn't just hide it under the mattress from dad. Not with the huge haul I had made. I also had to hide the new tools and materials I got from him – how could I possibly explain that I just "found" thirty grand lying around?

I had to start moving my production away from home. Sure, I'd still do some tinkering at home, but the bulk of it needed to be far away. I needed a workshop. That way, I could work more freely without having to explain to dad why I needed _armour plating._

At least I didn't need too many complex tools and like welding tools or laser cutters like some other tinkers needed. My bots _were _my tools, and the things I built mostly operated at the microscopic scale. All I really needed was a secret storage place, since my own builder-bots were the ones doing all the manufacturing of other bots. That opened up the options of places I could accept. I didn't need too much room, I could favour ones that were more easily overlooked rather than size or even security. Even if someone broke into my workshop, there wouldn't be much for them to find.

I was also trying to figure out if I could improve the maximum range I could control my bots. When I went jogging each day, I focused on keeping control of my bots at home as long as I could. I wanted my workshop to be controllable from home so that I could command the bots to work while I was laying in bed. Failing that, maybe I could find a place that wasn't too far from school.

Neither one was possible, unfortunately. I suppose I should be happy that I lived in a neighbourhood without too many abandoned, run-down buildings. It wasn't a rich neighbourhood, but at least it wasn't crime-ridden. Heck, it was probably _because_ it was cheaper that every home was occupied around here. To find an inconspicuous abandoned building meant I had to go further away, and I was edging on ABB territory.

Normally, I wouldn't have gone in this direction just for exercise. On one hand, it was dangerous. There were plenty of homeless drug addicts here, looking for a way to get their next fix. On the other hand, there were also plenty of abandoned or unused buildings. But most abandoned buildings had been taken by the gangs or homeless squatters. Due to the collapse of the shipping industry and the gang wars, there was no shortage of abandoned offices and warehouses. But for the exact same reasons, there were tons of people who had been left jobless and homeless.

I went out on several evening jogs to find out what I could use. Naturally, I covered myself in my armour bots since I would be wandering near contested gang area. Their additional weight slowed me down, but I just considered it good training. The ones that weren't protecting me, I scattered as far as I could send them, leaving them to scout out potential locations. I had my bots keep an eye on gang members - although the bad part of town meant lots of places that were easy to set up shop, it also meant it was close to gangs. I needed to make sure I didn't accidentally run into gang turf by accident.

I scouted a few places that seemed to be abandoned, and there was one not too far from Lord's Market that had potential. It was sort of near the edge of ABB territory, but there weren't many other abandoned buildings closer to the "safe" side of town, and this was about as far from gang territory as I could get. Just to be safe, I circled around a few blocks away to see if the gangs hung out around here, or had a safehouse nearby.

When I was watching out for gang members, I found something I didn't expect.

"Who the fuck are these kids? They think they can steal from ME? Do they not know know that's MY casino? Stupid children need to be taught harsh lessons. If you see them, shoot them. If they are on the ground, pump a couple extra rounds just to be sure. If you don't kill them, I will burn them to death myself." My bots found a man shouting half a mile from me.

I turned my attention to who said that. I recognized his face, even through the low-resolution image the bots gave me – the metal dragon mask on the heavily tattooed shirtless man was an easy giveaway. That was Lung, the leader of the ABB. He was arguably the only reason that the ABB was holding territory against Empire 88, despite having less than one-fifth the number of capes. Lung, alone, was worth a dozen. He was one of the most powerful capes in the world, someone who could theoretically take on Alexandria herself given enough time. He got stronger the longer he fought, and nobody knew if he had an upper limit. The only – and I mean the ONLY – way to survive him was to knock him out before he because uncontrollably strong.

He was also pretty ruthless, if the rumours were true. There was no reason to doubt it. He'd built up a reputation for himself here. It wasn't as if all the different Asians – Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Koreans, and others – were naturally united or something. There was more than enough bad blood between them from old history, World War 2, Vietnam War, the Korean War... lots of them hated each other on principle. Lung was able to unite them purely through an iron fist. There was a reason the police, the PRT, and everyone on the online forums warned people not to fuck with Lung. If he said he was going to murder some kids, I wasn't going to take any chances and I would act as if he was probably going to murder some kids.

Another group of of my bots, several blocks in the other direction, detected a lot of shouting, screaming, alarms, and lots of commotion in general coming from the Ruby Dreams casino. I didn't know that it was owned by the ABB. I didn't see who the robbers were – but the shouts did sound like they were mostly younger voices. Maybe they didn't know that Lung already knew about them. And that he was going to kill them.

So, Lung was to my south, the child robbers were to my north, and I was right in between. I had to put my running skills to the test to warn them.


	6. Excursion 2

Excursion 2

When Lung said he was going to kill kids, my brain immediately jumped to the idea of kids. As in, people younger than me. When I noticed a group of people and some teenage-sounding voices coming from a casino robbery nearby, I realized that they may have been other capes around my age.

When I actually got close to them, I realized I had been completely wrong. They weren't just helpless-if-misguided teenage troublemakers. I was suddenly facing three gigantic, spiky demon-dogs that had suddenly burst onto the scene so quickly my bots couldn't quite focus on them.

There were a group of professional-looking capes looking like they were getting ready to climb on top of the dogs. Nicely made costumes and everything, holding duffel bags of cash. Except one, who was just wearing a dog mask. Definitely not just your standard high school delinquents. Okay, to be fair, they were probably only a few years older than me at most. Maybe late teens. Maybe even legally adults. Hard to tell with their masks on. Maybe Lung was just being insulting, or maybe his English wasn't great, or maybe it was a combination of both.

But he was definitely going to kill them.

The dogs turned to growl at me. The cape in the dog mask looked at me and snarled, "Who the hell are you?" Didn't have to be a genius to realize that she was the one who controlled the giant dog-monsters. She seemed to be the heavy hitter of the group. Note to self, don't piss her off. Note to self number 2: she seemed like the type to get pissed off really easily.

"Came to warn you," I panted out with one hand on my knee. I pointed in the general direction that I came from. "Lung's coming to kill you guys. I overheard him."

The blond girl wearing a basic domino mask looked at me. "Thanks. But why did you...? Oh, you must be the hero type. You just happened to overhear Lung and you just _had_ to help us. A little late, but good effort." Her patronizing tone annoyed the hell out of me. I just tried to save her life and she treated it like I was trying to sell her girl scout cookies.

Before any of us could start to run, there was a squeal of tires and the roar of an engine. A pickup truck rounded a corner, barreling down on us at full tilt. But far, far worse was the fact that there was a bright orange flaming man with a dragon mask standing in the bed. He was much bigger than when I last saw him, easily reaching seven feet tall already.

The demon dogs immediately turned to the new threat and growled, reading to tackle the vehicle like a new chew toy if they had to. Considering their size and the massive bulk of muscles underneath their spiky armour, I didn't doubt that they could win a wrestling match with a speeding car. But the pickup truck wasn't their opponent.

It screeched to a halt as the driver thought better than to drive straight into three sets of arm-length fangs. His passenger in the back, though, didn't care. Lung vaulted over the cab of the truck when it started braking. He flew through the air at full speed as the momentum carried him with a trail of fire coming off his body.

"YOU STEAL FROM ME? DIE!" he roared as he landed fist-first on the middle dog. His flaming punch drove its snout into the ground.

I was about to be caught in the middle of a fight with Lung. The one guy who could solo an entire Protectorate team. The guy who, as a matter of public record, had soloed an _Endbringer_. You weren't supposed to be in the same goddamn country when fights like that took place.

He was ten feet away from me as I started to sprint to safety. Luckily, I wasn't the focus of his attention as he prepared to beat down the two other dogs. His roar matched the beasts as they collided. The other two dogs tried to snap at him, but he was agile enough to avoid their mouths and showed no fear while taking on animals ten times his size. I didn't doubt his bravado. He would be able to beat all three eventually, which meant I needed to get out of here fast.

"You fucker! Don't hurt my puppies!" dog-girl yelled. She hopped off of her own mount. For a second, I thought she was crazy enough to fight him one-on-one. But it seemed like the dog she was riding on had been holding back, until she got off. The dog charged at full speed to tackle him. Lung jumped out of the way, but the other dog was ready, and managed to grab onto his arm. It clamped down hard.

Lung screamed in anger and pain. The flames grew hotter and more silvery scales were covering his skin. He smashed the dog's snout repeatedly with his free hand. The first dog, the one smacked by Lung's flying punch, had recovered from the hit and whipped its long tail around, smacking Lung directly in the chest. He was sent flying across the street and smashed into a brick wall.

Behind the garbage can I was using to hide, I could feel the vibrations of the impact through the sidewalk. I poked my head out to spare a glance, hoping that Lung had been taken care of and that the danger had passed.

Nope. The arm that was in the dog's mouth remained there. Even so, Lung didn't seem to care as he extracted himself from the crumbling brickwork. He got up, and yelled, "YOU GONN PAY!" His mouth was longer and pointier, and I could even see his missing arm starting to regenerate.

"Boss!" Several vans and other vehicles arrived, stopping haphazardly in the middle of the street. Dozens of Asians with varying amounts of red and green clothing came out, bearing weapons. Most of them seemed to be carrying baseball bats, chains, machetes, and the like, but a few had guns.

I wasn't going to die from a lucky random bullet. On my body, I shifted all the armour bots to my front and layered extra around my head and chest. I tried to crawl to better cover, hoping nobody noticed me. A garbage can wasn't going to stop a bullet. It was arguable if a car could, either, but I would trust sheet metal more than plastic.

Across the buildings, I recalled every single bot to descend on the ABB gang members to do everything they could against the guns. Gum up the mechanisms. Cut springs. Jam the safeties. Just mess things up at random.

A single bullet punched through the car and hit me in the back. My bots held firm; the car had managed to slow the bullet down enough. Thank goodness.

The other villains hadn't been idle either. Black smoke spewed from the one in motorcycle leathers, messing up their aim. I saw one of the ABB gang members twitch as he seemed to handle his gun like a complete amateur, spraying bullets everywhere and hitting his own allies.

The darkness and several injured made them more cautious, but there were still a few bold ones taking pot shots in our general direction. Some charged forward to get out of the smoke, but Motorcycle dude was spreading out more and more smoke to cover the area while he moved. The ABB gang members often ended up tripping or going the wrong direction entirely. My bots could feel their bodies hit the ground, either through losing their balance or being struck by friendly fire.

My bots had trouble navigating through the smoke, and my control of them was dulled as well. I couldn't sense things through my bots as easily as before. Whatever the smoke was, it was more than just darkness; it seemed to dull my power slightly. But when the gangsters fell down, at least it helped my bots swarm over them more quickly. Even after they managed to get up, I could hear fewer bangs and more empty clicks as the gang members tried to figure out what was wrong with their weapons.

I was still crawling along beside the parked cars, since the smoke hadn't managed to encapsulate all the gangsters. I didn't want to make myself a visible target. The young villain group took cover behind cars near me, to my annoyance. They were just drawing the gangsters closer to where I was!

I heard even more gunfire in this direction. Broken glass rained down on me as bullets passed through the windows of the car I was hiding behind. I felt another bullet strike my bot-armour. Again, it had been slowed down by passing through the car, and it didn't hurt me.

"Get behind the engine blocks, it's the thickest part of the car!" The blonde shouted to her team. Or maybe to me. Either way, I wasn't going to turn down good advice as I shifted my hiding position slightly.

I kept up with my strategy of disabling the guns as Lung kept fighting the giant dogs. He was even bigger now, with one arm being a slightly larger stump than it was a few minutes ago, and the dogs hadn't managed to pin him down yet. In fact, he realized that the butch girl was the weak spot, and the dogs were now being defensive as he attempted to focus on her instead.

Meanwhile, Motorcycle Guy was still spewing smoke, which mostly took care of the ABB gang members carrying melee weapons. It seemed like the smoke threw off their balance as well, since most of them were stumbling even without colliding with anything. That took care of the majority of the gangsters temporarily, which let me concentrate my bots on swarming those with guns.

The sounds of gunfire and bullet impacts decreased bit by bit, until it disappeared entirely, replaced by shouts of confusion and frustration.

"Guys! She's disabled their guns! Take them down!" the blonde girl yelled.

"On it!" A guy with a scepter and 17th-century fashion jumped down and ran into the fray.

"You go left, I'll take the right!" said the Motorcycle Man. The cloud of darkness retracted from the left side slightly, exposing only one or two members. Renaissance Boy went up to one of them and jabbed them with his scepter. I heard some zapping sounds, and some of my bots detected an influx of electricity. I guess the scepter was also a taser. Those he hit spasmed and fell to the ground, either completely unconscious or groaning in too much pain to fight onwards.

On the other side of the black cloud, Mr. Motorcycle rushed straight into the darkness. There was a whole lot of thumping and pounding. I couldn't see through the smoke, and neither could my bots, but it seemed like he was doing pretty well in there.

I was glad that this team knew how to work together, at least. The gang members seemed to be going down quickly, but Lung definitely was not. The battle with the dogs was still ongoing. His arm had mostly regenerated, though it was still clearly smaller than the other arm. He'd grown even taller, and less human. I think he was close to seven feet now, and almost completely covered in silver scales. At this point, he was holding one of the dog's jaws open with one good arm and one foot. He spat a fireball straight down the dog's throat, causing it to rear back and choke.

"Angelica!" the dog-girl screamed, running to the downed beast.

Lung didn't care. The flames coming off his body were liquefying the asphalt, and now the other demon dogs were wary of getting too close. He charged at the second dog, deliberately initiating a wrestling match with it. I could see all four of its legs straining to hold back Lung as its claws attempted to catch on the asphalt. The third dog tried to snatch up Lung in its teeth, but he was agile enough to leap out of the way. The dogs crashed into each other, and Lung leaped onto their backs and started pounding down.

"Bitch! We're leaving!" the one in the black skull shouted. He spread the dark cloud to completely surround Lung.

"Not without Angelica!" Bitch replied. She seemed angry, but ran towards the downed animal while the other two continued to fight. All of them started to run except Bitch. I decided it was best to follow.

"NO RUN!" Lung roared as he stumbled out of the dark cloud, facing the wrong way. His half-human, half-dragon face made it harder for him to speak, but there was no mistaking his meaning. He grabbed one of the dog's tails and pulled, whipping the dog into the same building he had been thrown at before. He ran and slid underneath the other dog, narrowly evading its jaws as well. He jumped up with an uppercut right under the dog's belly, sending it flipping through the air. Then he looked at us, and began to run.

Crap.

He definitely wanted to kill us.

Mr. Motorcycle Helmet was still releasing plenty of darkness, but the street was wide open. It was still pretty obvious what direction we were going, even if he would have trouble seeing us precisely. There weren't many places for us to hide behind, and Lung was catching up fast. Regent did something with his powers and caused Lung to stumble, buying us some time, but he definitely wasn't going to taze Lung to keep him down. Not that a taser would stop him at this point.

More and more darkness spewed out into the street, covering Lung again. "This way!" The blonde pointed as we turned a corner. The dark cloud managed to cover the entire intersection. As we ran, I could hear the sound of Lung stumbling, but still moving fast. Unlike the other ABB members, when he tripped and crashed against a car, the car was the first thing to give way. Lucky for us, the cloud was interfering with his hearing and other senses, and he ran through the intersection we had just passed.

Unfortunately, it seemed that Motorcycle Man wasn't able to project his smoke far enough, because it only took a few seconds for Lung to turn around. The move had bought us a few seconds, but he would catch up very quickly.

Thankfully, Bitch's dogs were just as fast, if not faster, than Lung. She quickly managed to catch up with her two remaining dogs, and she was holding one normal-sized, injured dog in her hands.

"Alright, let's go! New girl, you too!" Blondie shouted. They all started to climb onto the massive dogs.

"She ain't touching my dogs," Bitch growled. I paused to glare at her. _Really?_

"Bitch, this ain't the time to argue. She fought, she helped save our lives. She's coming with us," Motorcycle Man said. To me, he said firmly, "Get on. We'll get you out of here."

I quickly climbed on to the dog that Bitch wasn't riding, squeezing in behind Blondie and Renaissance Boy.

Lung had gotten his bearings again and was going to catch up soon. The dogs we were riding took off so quickly that I nearly fell off. Even so, Lung was sprinting towards us faster than an Olympian.

We had to put more distance between us, but he was getting bigger, faster, and stronger by the minute. And probably angrier, too. Every part of his body was already covered in scales, getting more dragon-like. I wouldn't be surprised if at some point he grew wings. There was no way to take down Lung at this stage without massive amounts of firepower, and he was already a match for the team's heaviest hitter. Running was our only option. He was getting wise to the black smoke power, too. I wanted to hit him somewhere to make him pause, but every place on him had armour. Even his balls, probably.

Well, except for one place. His eyes didn't have armour.

I ordered my bots to swarm ahead of him. They couldn't crawl towards him along the ground, as my bots would get incinerated at the slow speeds that they could move. Trying to get up his leg was downright impossible, as if they even had time to latch on to him, given how quickly he moved. Instead, I balled up my bots into little grape-sized lumps and used other bots to launch them at him. My accuracy was terrible, but what I lacked in skill or quality, I made up for in quantity.

Thousands of bundles of bots pelted him from several directions at once. A few managed to actually make it to his face. It would take several thousand scratching at his eyes to truly distract or stop him, but his flaming body would destroy my bots in droves. Every bot I had, except for the ones I kept on my body for personal protection, was sent against him. Many landed on his body and were melted or vaporized in his flames. He was incinerating days, even weeks of my work in seconds.

The few that made it to his eyes did manage to make it itch, at the very least. I saw him wipe his eyes with a flaming arm. All the bots on his face were instantly wiped out. Another million happened to land on the bridge of his nose and swarmed in. Between his regeneration abilities and flames, my bots would only give two seconds' worth of distraction at best.

"Grue! Cover both sides of that alley! Regent, get ready!" the blonde shouted.

Biker Leathers guy, or Grue apparently, nodded. The alley ahead branched off, and he covered the entire intersection with darkness. As we entered the cloud, I heard a muffled "RIGHT!" came from Tattletale. We veered right. Regent did his thing, causing Lung to stumble again. The dragon-man brought his hands in front of him to stop his fall, it left his eyes open and much closer to the ground.

It made it much easier to hit his face. I swarmed his eyes with all the bots I could spare at once. Far more bots managed to get at his face than my last few attempts. Every one of them used their diamond-tipped blades to slice and tear at his eyes. Against any normal person or even most parahumans, that would have been excessive force. Against Lung, who had recently finished regrowing an entire arm, it only blinded him temporarily. We ran into the darkness as he had to pause.

I heard the sound of sirens, and an especially loud motorbike. So, I guess her plan had been to lead Lung towards the official authorities and let them deal with it? I didn't want Lung to kill a whole bunch of regular police officers or heroes, though. But I didn't have the choice.

In one last-ditch effort, or possibly out of plain old rage, Lung ran into the middle of the smoky intersection and threw fireballs in every direction. One came flying down in our direction. The dogs couldn't quite dodge, and one of the fireballs struck the dog I was riding on. The dog's spiky armour absorbed most of the blow, but some of the flames even reached me. Even the indirect strike from the fireball was hot enough to damage and superheat metallic armour bots on my back. Most of them flaked off as they were damaged, but the heat was so intense it partly melted some of the metal. Some of the bots got stuck as the heat seared into my back. I screamed as I fell, the metal sizzling against my skin.

The pain was overwhelming. It smelled a bit like pork chop, I thought, as I passed out.

* * *

"Wakey-wakey, princess!" I vaguely recognized the voice. It was that blonde girl. I was laying face-down. Not my favourite sleeping position. My body was half-aching, half-numb. I tried to roll over and was instantly greeted with intense pain on my back.

"Whoa! Don't do that, you got some pretty bad burns."

I sat up and gingerly attempted to prevent anything from touching my back. Most of my bots were gone. I didn't recognize where I was. I looked around. The first thing I noticed was Bitch, who now had three regular-sized dogs. Huh. They were actually pretty cute. Grue was sitting facing me. And the blonde girl was sitting at the end of the couch, where I had been laying.

"Hi. I'm Tattletale. We didn't know where to take you, so we took you to our lair."

"We're the Undersiders," Grue said. "I'm not asking you to join us, but you did try to save our lives. So we couldn't just abandon you."

"Yeah, thanks for that," another voice came from further away. I was too tired to look at who it was.

"You also helped us get away just before Armsmaster arrived. Right in the nick of time, too."

"Uh-huh. What happened again?" I felt thirsty as hell. I managed to "find" some more of my bots, my mind reconnecting with them. I gathered the ones near me to inspect my back more closely. I also sensed the ones I left at home, which meant I wasn't too far away. Interesting.

"Well, the burns happened when you took one of Lung's fireballs to your back. We thought you were dead, but that armour of yours did its job. You won't be using it again though; it took us a while to pick out the metal bits that fused with your skin. We've applied some basic antiseptic and dressings, and some light painkillers."

Holy crap. It only just hit me what had actually happened. I had nearly died. _Lung himself_ had nearly incinerated me. And those gangsters, they were shooting at me. Not just firing in my general direction, they were actually, deliberately, trying to _kill me_. Oh god, what would my father think? I couldn't tell him. Definitely not. I'd have to keep this to myself. Maybe it was time to quit while I was still ahead...

"Hey, stay with me now. Look, I know it was scary, but you survived. You want to go to the hospital? Just to warn you, Panacea's not going to be there for a few days. Endbringer in South America," Tattletale told me.

I shook my head. Hospitals meant records. Even if Panacea happened to be there and could heal me perfectly, they would still have it on record that I got severe burns. And they'd pretty much be obligated to call dad. And I wouldn't have a solid excuse for why I was hanging around gangsters in the middle of the night.

"Water. Antiseptic." It hurt to talk, but I got the point across. They offered it up to me. I used my bots to clean my wounds more thoroughly, getting rid of debris and other things far better than anyone with a pair of tweezers could manage. The others turned away, not wanting to look at the wound. Tattletale, though, seemed fascinated.

"So, no to a hospital. Huh. You want to keep this whole thing a secret. Tonight was your first night out… no, first night in real action. You've been out before." Tattletale squinted at me like she knew everything about me. She continued to rattle on while I worked. "So you're trying to keep your civilian life away from your cape life. Trying to protect someone at home. Sibling? No, parent. Father. Interesting. You want to be a hero, but you don't have the means to do it. Money's the issue. Well, as thanks for saving my life, I can help with that."

How the hell was she doing that? Was she psychic? I was coming to realize what it meant to be inside villain group's lair. Sure, they had been friendly so far, but I might have to fight my way out. How many bots did I still have? I started out the night with nearly a billion. There were a bunch still at home, only a few thousand though. Most of the ones on my body had been destroyed. Almost all the armor-bots were gone, and only a few thousand workers remained. I'd have to rebuild. Buy more material and start producing more. She was right. I wasn't ready for the big leagues yet.

Tattletale grinned. "So you wanted to be a hero. But you didn't want to join the Wards. Why not? Your father… he'd have reservations, but in the end he would have supported you. That wasn't the reason. You don't trust the Protectorate. They've done something to you. Not the organization, but one of their members. But the organization enabled it. They…" her eyes widened in shock.

I was glaring at her. Every thing she was saying was not something I wanted to share. That hurt even more than my back right now, and I couldn't help but show it on my face. I could barely talk right now, but if she was reading me so well, she should be able to tell that I was on the verge of murdering her if she went any further.

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize it was _that_ bad. The PRT basically _caused_ your trigger. Holy shit. Okay, good reason. Look, I'm sorry for revealing all your secrets. When my power shows me stuff, sometimes I can't help but blurt it out. Hence the name," Tattletale said sheepishly. "Look, I'm sorry. I definitely still owe you, you know? And it can be really hard for an independent cape out there. If you ever need any advice, just look for me. Or if you need to borrow some money. Maybe post a message on Parahumans Online. Something vague, don't give anything away. I'll be able to figure it out."

Grue nodded. "She's our master planner. Trust me, she gives good advice. Most of the time."

"Thanks for the help," I groaned. "But I have to get going. Dad… can't know."

"Oh, and I had to cut your hair. Some of it got singed. Just to warn you, have an excuse ready. Keep the clothes, they're a gift," Tattletale said.

_Fuck_. My hair was ruined, too.

"I'm trusting that you'll keep this place a secret. We won't give away your identity, either. We still owe you one. Truce?" Grue held out a hand. I shook it weakly.

Their lair actually wasn't too far from my house. As I wandered the early morning's empty streets, I had to re-prioritize. I had gotten too cocky. I'd gotten used to the stupid, tweaked-out Merchants. My success against them meant nothing against the ABB, and especially Lung. Being a solo hero and taking on the villains was definitely not something I should be doing.

I suddenly understood why dad was constantly fretting about what I was doing with my powers, until I thought it crossed the line from concern to annoyance. But maybe it turned out he was right. I had gotten greedy.

I learned the hard way, and thank goodness I hadn't earned myself a Darwin Award. I needed to learn some first aid, and probably study more biology. Make more camouflage bots to hide my wounds, while having others clean the burns area and change the dressings at the cellular level. Hopefully with their help my wounds would heal faster. And no more cape stuff until I'd figured everything out.

One thing was for certain, though. I still wasn't joining the Wards. But what else could I do?

* * *

I was thankful I had the cash from that last haul against the Merchants. I immediately spent a chunk of it and worked like mad to create even tinier bots – they needed to be especially small to clean the damaged cells on my back, pick out the last few bits of metal without causing more damage. I had to look up on the internet how to best treat second and third degree burns, and it seemed like the main problem was keeping the whole thing clean while it healed. Smaller bots, working constantly to clean the wound and precisely delivering antiseptics would help it heal far better than anything a regular doctor could do.

I also had to repurpose my camouflage/armour bots again – this time, they had to help me stand up. My back was weak, some of the muscles were damaged. While they healed, I needed my bots to help me stand up straight and pretend everything was fine around dad. I only had one more day before school started again.

The haircut was explained as a spur-of-the-moment decision. Tattletale had actually done a decent job of it. I told my dad that I just wanted to restart school after my suspension with a fresh look. Thank goodness he hadn't been awake when I got home; I just stashed Tattletale's clothes in the back of my closet.

Unfortunately for me, even rebuilding my swarm of robots at maximum pace, I couldn't save my own skin. Literally. Scar tissue had begun to build up, so I would have a permanent scar on my back. I could cover it with bots to hide it, but that wouldn't hold up well, especially under close scrutiny.

I was actually dreading going back to school again. Not that they would see the scar, but the hair was an easy target for my bullies.

That is, until I saw Emma wearing a wig. What? It was a high quality wig, probably something from her modelling gig, but it was obviously not her real hair. Sophia... she had a wig too. Did Emma give that to her? I didn't see Madison yet, but I realized what had happened.

I had actually forgotten that I had ordered my bots to do that. I hadn't really been concentrating on Friday when I showed up to the library; I just went through my daily routine. Sit down, read a book, send bots to snip away at my bullies' hair. I had been so hyped after the massive haul against the Merchants on Thursday night that I didn't realize how quickly I had been cutting. I hadn't kept enough bots on them to actually _see_ how much I had been cutting. I was concentrating on keeping the numbers _low_ just in case Sophia went running to the PRT; there hadn't been enough for me to form a coherent image. I was only vaguely aware that my bots had been finding _less_ hair to cut towards the end of the day.

Some teachers really enforced the no-hats rule in their classes, exposing me to exactly how far my bots had gone, on Madison, at least. She hadn't been given a wig from Emma; she was just wearing a hat. Which she had to remove.

G.I. Jane would be the nice way of putting it. She must have shaved the rest of it off, because I was certain there must have been at least a few uneven clumps of hair remaining by the end of Friday. Even though Emma and Sophia seemed mostly unscathed with their wigs, people had noticed the difference. They could infer what had happened through Madison. People were laughing at someone _other_ than me.

"Hey look, it's the Skinhead trio!"

"Did you forget the E88 doesn't take blacks, Hess?"

"I heard they were playing rock-paper-scissors, and they all lost to scissors."

Not a single person even bothered to comment on my own involuntary haircut.

I'd brought them down from their uppity throne, and it felt good. It felt powerful. It felt… conflicting.

Was this why they picked on me before? Because seeing someone below them made themselves feel better? Crap. Was I as bad as they were? Crap crap crap. Maybe I'd gone too far. But I couldn't confess to it. And I couldn't exactly grow their hair back for them.

What had I gotten myself into? The best I could do was deny, deny, deny. Just like what they did.

The trio was glaring daggers at me. I mean, they weren't wrong if they were accusing me. But they had literally no evidence against me, which was far less than the amount of evidence I had presented against them. And even if they threatened to reveal that I was a cape, that would be suicide in itself. Capes, even the gangsters, respected secret identities. The Undersiders were pretty respectful of mine even when I was unconscious inside their base. At the very least, Empire 88 members would probably shield and recruit me since I was white, but I didn't want to hide behind Nazis. We were basically at a stalemate.

I decided that, as long as they didn't escalate further, I wouldn't either. I suffered one and a half years of this bullying. I'm sure their hair would grow back in less than that time. All I would do is just avoid them, evade them for now. Keep spreading my bots around the school to keep watch. Throughout the day, they were _really_ trying hard to corner me.

"Taylor Hebert, Sophia Hess, Emma Barnes, please report to the principal's office."

I partly wondered what they were trying to pull. Weird, they usually teamed up and presented a united front when they did that. As I walked into Principal Blackwell's office, I saw Madison waiting. Sophia and Emma arrived afterwards.

"What is it this time?" I asked with the most uncaring and bored expression I could manage.

"Miss Hebert, Miss Clements says you assaulted her and forcibly cut her hair. Miss Hess and Miss Barnes can corroborate."

I couldn't believe they would even _try_ this. I looked around. No Armsmaster? No Miss Militia? This wasn't the PRT coming down on me. As far as they could accuse me, I was just Taylor Hebert, ordinary high school girl. They couldn't accuse me of being a cape.

Funny, I caught Sophia giving Madison a _look_. Seems like they hadn't rehearsed this. Maybe Madison couldn't take the bullying? Figured that those who dished it out couldn't take the heat themselves. She probably panicked and made up a story; now the other two had to play catch-up.

Besides, I was beyond caring at this point. "She's said a lot of things. They said they didn't push me into that dumpster in January. How is it relevant?"

"Miss Hebert, this is a serious accusation..."

"Really? And I accused them of sending me to the hospital. How serious was that?" I glared at Emma. "Didn't know a haircut required hospitalization these days."

"Miss Hebert, that matter was settled legally last month." Oh yeah. Settled. What a fine word. It meant that as long as my dad was too poor to pay for my hospital bills, the bullies AND the school could get away scot-free. What a wonderful world.

"Legal? Sure. But there's four of us in this room who know what happened."

Blackwell slammed her fist on her desk. "That matter is behind us! Today, Miss Hebert, you've been accused of violently attacking another student!"

I just looked at her incredulously. "Why don't you just tell her what you always tell me? There's not enough evidence. I wasn't even at school last week. _You're_ the one who suspended _me_, remember?"

"Shut it, Hebert. You attacked Madison," Sophia started.

"Really. If that was true, what were you doing, just standing there watching? You're a real friend, aren't you?" I could tell that comment really dug into Sophia. She was ready to throw a punch. Principal Blackwell's presence was barely keeping her rage in check. I was getting a better idea of why she was always picking on me. She was a weakling who picked on who she saw as the weakest person in the school to make herself feel stronger.

My back was still aching. The burns weren't even close to being healed. I may have been physically weak, but I drew strength from it. I'd saved people's lives against _Lung_. Sophia was a weakling who picked on those who were weaker. _I stood against Lung_. Sophia would shit her pants in fear against him. I didn't need to back down. _I was stronger than her_.

"Are you admitting to attacking Miss Clements, Miss Hebert?" Blackwell said sternly. Was she really this dumb? No, there had to be more to it. She _always_ took Sophia's side. And now I knew that Sophia was Shadow Stalker. Was she getting paid to cover for her? If not her, then the school?

"When did it even happen?" I glared at the three of them. Madison started to lean into the other two. Emma looked to Sophia for guidance, while Sophia glared at Madison.

"...weekend," Madison said meekly. Funny, she wasn't nearly as good at playing the cute innocent girl without the innocent look. Everyone had seen their short hair around school during class. She couldn't pretend it happened at lunch or after school. It was still a weak answer, one I could easily capitalize on.

"So, let's get your story straight. Me, all by myself, managed to pin down Madison, and cut her hair, while the rest of you watched. How long did that take? Three minutes? Five? All that time, I guess I was so strong that none of you yelled for help or ran away? You're saying I held Madison down while you two were too weak to pull me off her. Or you were so scared that you couldn't call for help. Is that right, Sophia?"

"F... shut up, Hebert. You had help."

"Who? My boyfriend from Canada who had to drive back across the border right away?"

"You don't have a boyfriend, Taylor. You never will," Emma said bitterly.

"She joined the Empire 88," Madison said. "The other members attacked us.

"That's a hell of an accusation. Got any names?" I shot back.

All of them were quiet for a second before randomly mumbling different names. Thank goodness Madison had panicked. She was more of a spur-of-the-moment bully, like when she spilled drinks or threw pencil shavings at me. She wasn't as good at the long-term planning and plausible deniability; she mainly took advantage of Emma and Sophia's immunity from the staff. The other two must have had a discussion about this over the weekend, and maybe they even forgot about Madison. They had been the original bullies; Madison had joined in the middle of last year. Obviously she wasn't privy to all their scheming.

"Can't even get your stories straight. Why don't you go find all these mysterious other participants first, then tell me what happened?"

"They... they don't go to this school. They were older. Bigger."

"Uh-huh. And you're still saying it was Empire 88. But they attacked you instead of Sophia," I said, pointing out the obvious difference in their skin.

"You had your goons hold us down, one by one! She was going to be next!" Madison continued to spin her story.

I looked over at Sophia and Emma's arms. "But they didn't hold hard enough to give you any bruises. It's like you didn't fight back. Didn't know you two gave up so easily." I pointed out Emma's flawless skin, since it was easier to see bruises on her.

"Shut up! I'm a fighter. I'm a survivor!" Emma shouted back angrily.

"Oh, and I bet there's zero police reports. A gang assault that would land me in jail if you told the _real_ authorities, but you only come running to Blackwell to get me detention," I said. I couldn't believe I was winning. I didn't care about Blackwell any more. _This_ was their weakness. The trio bullied me to make themselves think they were strong. Calling them weak was their sore point.

"Shut up! You had a mask on! We didn't realize it was you until after we got together at school..."

Their excuses were still too flimsy. They were definitely panicking. I watched Principal Blackwell struggle internally. The story that Sophia was spinning was such obvious bullshit. But she obviously _had _to side with Sophia for some reason. She was grinding her teeth down, trying to find a way to talk her way out of it without sounding like a complete hypocrite. Too bad it was difficult to do when you actually were one, through and through. "We won't be doing anything today, but keep in mind that I will inform the teachers to watch you closely."

Sophia looked especially furious. It was like she was expecting the principal to just roll over and give her everything she wanted. It had always worked in the past. "This isn't over, Hebert," she muttered quietly so that the principal couldn't hear. She seemed more angry at Madison than she was at me, though.

I rolled my eyes as I turned around and faced Blackwell. "If the teachers had ever paid any attention, they would have taken my side a long time ago. Once they find out they're lying _again_, you'll just tell them to look away instead and pretend nothing happened." As I walked out the door, Blackwell yelled at me some more, probably something to do with detention. I didn't care. Whether Blackwell was just personally favouring Sophia or if she was under orders to do it, either way she was an enemy.

No doubt, Blackwell wouldn't punish Madison for falsely accusing me of something. I couldn't think of many people who could strong-arm her... other than the Protectorate. It made sense. Sophia Hess was a Ward. A Ward committing crimes? Being arrested for bullying? That made the Protectorate look bad, and they couldn't have that happening. The Protectorate was all about PR. I was more certain than ever that avoiding them was the best choice.


	7. Excursion 3

Excursion 3

"Hey Taylor. What's bugging you?" Dad asked me.

"Nothing," I sighed. I was still thinking about how I had been nearly killed by Lung. It was hard to forget, with the painful burns on my back still not fully healed.

"Don't give me that. Something's up. You're looking pretty glum," he said. "Is it the bullies again?"

"No... not really," I said. "I just wasn't sure if I really wanted to do the whole superhero thing or not." When people like Lung roamed your local streets, a lot of people wouldn't want to be open about having powers too.

"Taylor. Not everyone has to be a superhero. Just do what you do best. Do you want to work on your robots? Maybe get some new tools, visit the junkyard again?" he asked.

I knew he was trying to cheer me up, but it was hard to take my mind off the main issue. I wasn't sure if I could really do anything, be an effective force against crime. My dreams had basically died that night with Lung. I could make tiny robots. Could I _really_ make any significant contribution before getting pounded down by someone as powerful as Lung? Or Kaiser, Purity, or any of the other villains with ridiculously broken powers in this town? At the same time, I couldn't just stop. Denying my power was like denying my gender. It wasn't something I could just sit back and ignore. I didn't know what to do.

"Sorry, dad. I just... don't think I want to do anything right now," I said. I'd moved beyond human-sized tools anyway. There wasn't anything I could do with my father with regards to my power. Maybe I would just work on fixing mom's flute right now. My bots might be able to perform friction welding.

"Well, whatever it is... just know that I'm here for you, Taylor. Whenever you're ready..." Dad quietly walked out and closed the door.

Yeah, I had problems. I guess I should just start with my own wounds. My literal wounds. Even if I couldn't survive the Brockton Bay cape scene, at the very least I could just fix my injuries and maybe get my bullies off my back. Maybe I just didn't have it in me to be a hero. I'd just solve my little, personal problems first and figure things out from there.

My bots couldn't do anything like accelerate biology, so I was relegated to healing at whatever normal pace the human body could. At least the continuous cleaning and microscopic-level care that my bots provided did help speed up my healing slightly, though the extent of the burns were still massive.

I ended up spending most of my free time lying face down in bed. I still kept myself busy, either by reading some more textbooks on biology and medicine. Some of it was actually interesting. When I got bored of that, I worked on fixing my mom's flute.

My bots were strong enough to bend soft metals like copper, even at the microscopic level. I could actually fully repair my mom's flute, albeit slowly. With nothing better to do until I got better, I decided to spend most of my after-school time to getting it right.

* * *

Of course, my mom's flute didn't require my entire reserve of bots. I didn't let the others sit idly. I decided to just build. Build more, without direction. Just get my mind off my life. Normally that meant I had to go and buy supplies. But in my current condition, I wasn't ready to go out and procure materials. Heck, just getting through school and hiding my injuries was enough of an ordeal.

I used my bots to scavenge around the neighbourhood for what I could use to make more. I didn't want to vandalize my neighbours' belongings, but trash was fair game. People didn't throw out electronics often, mostly plastic packaging, food, and a whole lot of paper. It was hard finding material for my bots, unless I redesigned them to use those materials instead.

I had ideas, but nothing that would help me against Lung. I was still scared of something like that happening again – with even less luck on my side. I could very well die next time I faced Lung.

Then again, what the hell was I thinking, _next time_? Maybe I shouldn't think about fighting Lung. Like a normal person. Normal people didn't think about fighting a transforming dragon-man who could incinerate them.

I really needed to focus on what I actually needed. And right now, I needed rest and healing. So, with nothing better to do, I went ahead and created bots using the garbage I could find around the neighbourhood.

They were pretty disappointing, even to me. They weren't nearly as strong as my current designs, and were more fragile to boot. I tested their ability to take an impact and form armour, and they weren't much stronger than football gear. Including the bulk. Certainly nothing useful against a fire-breathing metallic dragon-man, because they were even more flammable than my metal bots.

They weren't really good for much other than keeping me busy, letting me test control, keeping me from getting bored by allowing me to sense the neighbourhood. Perhaps I needed to refine the plastic-and-glass bots more. For now, I just made more, just because I was bored. At least there wouldn't be any burglars sneaking up on our house. Or our neighbour's houses. I could, at least, provide secret neighbourhood security while I lazed about at home in bed.

As far as actual function, those bots were only capable of doing basic first aid – stabilizing wounds, disinfection, stopping bleeding, stuff like that. I didn't have a way to deal with internal injuries, not without smaller bots that could fit into the circulatory system. Good thing I hadn't suffered any internal injuries in that encounter. But it was something I was interested in, especially after reading through first aid books and biology texts.

Half the time, when it came to first aid, the treatment for internal injuries were basically just "keep the victim calm and wait for the ambulance." Maybe if my bots were small enough to traverse the human circulatory system, they could do a lot more. I was afraid of myself getting injured, with internal bleeding or something like that, and dying on the street.

Even if Lung didn't burn me to death, he was certainly strong enough to do that to me with a punch.

Not that I wanted to fight him again, I reminded myself.

I just had to get the designs out of my mind and into the real world. Just focus on that. Focus on solving my little personal problems, and leave it at that. I wasn't obligated to save the world or clean up Brockton Bay, after all. I just... needed to take this one problem at a time. And maybe the gang warfare wouldn't _be_ my problem.

Sophia and Emma had gotten away with so much, and it was clear to me that there was no chance of them ever being actually punished for breaking the rules. I looked over at my mom's flute. No, justice would never happen if I just waited. Things would only get fixed if I did it myself. I'd have to get strong enough myself to make sure they got what they deserved myself. I had gotten a little bit of revenge, but that wouldn't be all.

I needed to start small. I didn't need to stop there, but I did need to _start_ there. I didn't need to beat Lung myself. I couldn't deliver justice unto Sophia and Emma right away. Nobody else would fix my problems. Fix mom's flute. Fix the broken step at the front of the house. Heal my burned back. One step at a time.

I didn't really have a way to put all the pieces together, and I was still missing some chunks of material, but my bots were able to help me bend it into approximately the right shape. Unfortunately there were still a few dents to hammer out and holes to fill in, which my bots couldn't do, especially not the cheap plastic ones. Maybe if I had more of my higher-quality ones, but almost all of those had been lost in the fight against Lung. And I wasn't going to wander back into ABB territory to try retrieving any surviving bots I had left behind.

Strangely enough, fixing mom's flute inspired a lot for me. I suddenly knew specifically what my bots needed to be capable of. Better repair tools, greater strength, better interlocking and coordination. Specific designs flooded my head, and I knew I needed to buy a lot of materials I couldn't just salvage out of the junkyards. Stuff I couldn't find in the neighbourhood trash cans.

I managed to hold off for nearly two weeks, but like an itch I couldn't scratch, I eventually gave in. The neighbourhood was already covered in my cheap bots and I didn't want more, in fear of someone noticing and reporting it to the PRT. I decided to head to the electronics specialty store to pick up what I needed.

* * *

Perhaps I was being a little paranoid, but I was still afraid to go out without a good coating of bots over my body. Sure, I needed to cover the burn to make sure it was still healing properly, and a little bit of extra to support my injured back muscles. But I still took enough to at least cushion a strong punch. I didn't have enough armour-bots at the moment; almost all of those had been destroyed by Lung. The cheap plastic bots made from garbage did manage to form light body armour, but nothing good enough to stop a bullet.

To do that, I would need more advanced construction bots, and to do that, I needed to get some more specialty materials first. I can't believe how many steps I had been set back simply from a single night against Lung. At least I had money.

I had to remind myself that I already more protection than I usually took when I used to go jogging. I couldn't wait to start that again, once I had healed up more. It didn't hurt me to be a little paranoid, though. Along with the bots I was "wearing" for protection, I spread many of the bots I had made at home and school, into the streets ahead of my path to watch for any shady characters.

The walk to the store was completely uneventful. But as I approached the store, I suddenly had a new problem. A whole bunch of bots came into my range, ones that I hadn't placed there. More than that, they were very old ones, the type of bots that I had made when I was first starting out.

While I could keep track of my bots almost to the individual level while they were within my field of control, I had no idea which ones these were. They were the insect-sized ones, probably one of the ones I used at school. Crap. Possibly ones I had used to keep track of the Trio; maybe one of the ones that had gotten stuck in their clothes. Or maybe someone else had noticed one after I had left school? I was pretty careful about having them crawl into the ceiling and between the walls to hide after I left, but who knows...

They were sealed in a container, unable to actually do anything, but I could see and hear through them. Not enough to get a clear picture or high-quality sound, but enough.

_"...unusual orders?"_

_"No, just my usual customers. Well, a few new customers. One's buying a lot of wiring and basic control boards, but it's pretty typical for custom lighting. Oh, there's a new kid, her dad was introducing her to hobby electronics, I think. And a radio enthusiast introducing a friend. Nothing special."_

_"Very well. Please inform the Protectorate if you notice any unusual purchases. Here's my card."_

My bots couldn't read the card, nor did they need to. The blue suit of power armour and the roar of the motorcycle as he left told me everything I needed to know. Armsmaster was probably investigating me, looking for me in places where Tinkers usually shopped or salvaged. It probably meant I couldn't go to the scrapyard any more, either.

Crap. Sophia probably blabbed to him about it. Probably over the hair thing. No doubt, someone with Armsmaster's specialty would have found my bots and started analyzing them. Before Armsmaster drove out of my range, I had all the bots in the jar attack and dismantle each other, essentially self-destructing.

I needed to lay low for a while, but I also needed to get more bots. Better ones. Would that mean I had to find another source of material.

I sighed. With the local stores being monitored, I had to start buying things online. They probably had a way to track that too, but at least it gave me some options. Deliver things to a PO box or dropoff point, and pick it up later? Heck, I could have things delivered to the docks under a fake name. Either way, cash could only take me so far, and the Internet didn't deal in cash.

* * *

I had spent another two weeks trying to make do with what I could find from the trash, trying to stretch my creativity and see how far I could get without making any suspicious purchases. I started going on walks, seeing if other trash bins around town had more to offer me to salvage, but for the most part it was pretty similar. I did find the occasional bit of metal I could use, but it was usually something cheap like tin or aluminum cans. Sure, I found some quality steel every once in a while, but not nearly enough to keep up with the production speeds I _knew_ I was capable of.

Moreover, I couldn't do any of the interesting designs I had. I really needed some specialty materials, including powdered diamond, purified lithium, bulk teflon, maybe even some kevlar if I could find some. So many ideas but nothing I could truly _do_ unless I had them.

I'd had enough of being patient. I needed those materials, and I didn't want the PRT _or_ dad to catch me buying them. Which meant I needed to deposit my stash I had gained from the Merchants into a new bank account, maybe see what businesses would let me buy things by online debit or wire transfer. My dad could see my statements from the youth account he set up for me, and he definitely would wonder where thirty grand (probably less now) suddenly came from.

Off to Brockton Bay Central Bank it was.

Banks really weren't my thing. I mean, most people considered school boring, but at least they were trying to teach you something. Throw some kind of new information at you. At the bank, it seemed like boredom incarnate. Line up. Teller 2 is free. Walk a step forward. Wait. Teller 1 is free. Walk a step forward. Wait. Teller 5 is free. Opening a new account? Fill out these forms. And pull out my ID cards. Fill out another form. Sign here. And here. And here. And initial here. Just double-checking that you know everything you already knew, and we'll repeat it to make sure you know it. Did you know that? Sign here.

I just wanted the boredom to end. I wanted to have something productive to do. But when I saw a familiar dark smoke flow in from the back of the bank, I just had to sigh. "Damnit, universe, this isn't what I meant."

People started screaming, and a few wanted to run, but they immediately stopped after taking a step. One of Bitch's dogs covered filled up the entire entrance, ensuring nobody would be leaving out the front door. Front doorway. The doors had been torn off their hinges by the massive dog when it squeezed itself into the lobby. It pinned the security guard to the floor with one paw. The other Undersiders strolled in under the cover of Grue's darkness from the back of the bank. People were screaming, some of them frozen in fear, others running around like headless chickens.

It was the first time I got to see the group as a whole, doing what they were known for. Bitch was standing outside, her other two dogs patrolling the street. Grue, Tattletale, Regent, and a new member dressed like a harlequin or jester walked in and took positions behind the counter like they worked there.

The black smoke swirled around, covering the windows and exits. The only thing we could see now was them. Grue jumped up on top of the counter. "Alright everyone, shut up and listen up! This is a robbery. We're here to take the bank's money. Not your money, not your lives. Don't be a fucking hero, and nobody gets hurt, deal? Everyone, sit with your backs to that wall. Heads down, hands where we can see them." He pointed to the exterior wall.

People were still frozen.

"_Now."_

Bitch's dog growled. People started scrambling over to the wall, including myself.

What were they doing here? Technically, I already knew, if I listened to the logical side of my head. I mean, they were villains. No doubts as to what they were. But I was still under the impression they were mostly decent people. Most rumours said they just stole from other criminals. They'd picked me up and carried me to safety after fighting Lung and tended to my wounds, after all. I thought they would stick to hurting the other gangs. Not a legitimate business like the bank. And not in _broad daylight_.

I was debating whether or not I should fight them. The urge to be a hero was still there, but right now I just wasn't ready. I hadn't taken a massive number of bots with me, and the ones I had weren't great anyway. I might be able to take a punch from Grue, but not Bitch's dogs. I resigned myself to being another nobody.

Regent had found the bank manager. He was prodding him with his taser-scepter. "Where's the vault key?" he asked. The manager didn't say a word, and just shook his head. His face was red and he was sweating bullets. He kept his head down, avoiding Regent's gaze.

Regent zapped him with the taser with a short burst. The man fell to the ground, groaning in pain. "Why are you trying to be the hero, man? Didn't you hear what Grue said? We're here for the bank's money. We ain't gonna hurt anyone unless you give us a reason to. And you seem really keen on giving us reasons. You get off on this, buddy? Does pain make you excited?" He jabbed the scepter into the man's neck.

Grue walked up to the manager. "Why do you think the bank deserves your loyalty? Seriously, they're a bank. You think they fucking care about you? You think they're going to give you a bonus for getting beat up? The bank's got no loyalty to you, man. They'll fire your ass just for asking for a raise. We'll get the key eventually anyway, and then they'll fire you for not being a security guard when they're too cheap to hire good security themselves. Fuck 'em. Just give us the key."

The manager just cried and mumbled.

"Screw this. Tats, where's the key?" Regent shouted.

"Left back pocket. The brass one with the square-shaped head," Tattletale replied. "Nobody even _think_ about being a hero, got it? I'm psychic. I can tell," she announced to the crowd.

The jester still hadn't said anything. She pulled six throwing knives out of nowhere (at least, I didn't see anything on her skintight costume that could have held that many knives) and started juggling them with a wicked grin. I had no doubt she could throw them with pinpoint accuracy.

"Go," Grue said, nodding to Tattletale.

"Before I go… I'm going to have to take a hostage with me," she said. Our eyes locked for just a second. She pretended to scan the crowd, and "randomly" settled on me. "You, girl with the brown hair. Come with me."

I didn't know what she was thinking. Was she forcibly recruiting me? I didn't want to be turned into a villain before I even had the chance to be a hero. Then again, the gun was pretty convincing. I stood up with my hands up, walking to the back of the bank with Tattletale behind me. As we left the lobby, I could see Grue spreading his darkness further, leaving everyone in the main lobby blind.

Once we got to the very back, Tattletale holstered her gun. "I'm so sorry… uh… you know, you never gave us your cape name. Oh, you still haven't picked one yet. Sorry again. Look, I wanted to be a friend. If you need some advice being a hero, I'm still willing to help. And don't tell me your real name yet. That's my first piece of advice."

"What are you guys doing?" I hissed at her.

Tattletale began typing away at a computer. I noticed she either got really lucky and guessed the password, or she was hacking her way through easily. "Robbing a bank. I thought it was obvious," she said with a grin. Seeing my scowl, she sighed. "Look, a girl's gotta eat, you know? We don't _want_ to hurt anyone. This is just the life we've been forced into."

"But why crime?" I pleaded. "I mean, I get robbing criminals like the ABB. I'm not gonna be a hypocrite. But these are innocent people. They don't deserve this."

Tattletale shrugged. "Like I said, it's the job. When your choices are to rob a bank and get paid for the job, or get murdered for disobeying orders, the choice is pretty simple, don't you think?"

My eyes widened. They had a boss? But…

"I didn't tell him about you. Don't worry. I don't like working for him, and I don't want you working for him either, so I'm seeing if I can find out his true identity through banking records," she said. She plugged in a USB memory stick into the computer and began to copy files. "Look, I know you want to be a hero. And I'm willing to help with that, okay? In fact, I could really use a hero soon, one with the kind of power you have."

I cursed under my breath. "Fine."

"The rest of my team don't know. Each of them have their own reasons for working for my boss, and he's got dirt on each of them too. My boss probably knows I intend to betray him at some point, I can only hope my power lets me get him before he gets me. Please don't tell _anyone_. I want out, but if I don't time this right, I'm dead, understand?"

I nodded.

As the files were being copied, Tattletale finally went over to the vault and unlocked it with the key. I don't know where she got the combination, but she got it on her first try, again. Damn, her powers were bullshit. Tattletale started stuffing money into a duffle bag. I found it odd that they didn't have more members loading money here. Weird. For a bank robbery, they really didn't seem to be prioritizing getting the actual money. Maybe it had something to do with what Tattletale was grabbing off the computers.

The dog at the entrance barked three times.

"Shit, the Wards are here," Tattletale said. "Sorry, girl. I'm going to have to take you hostage again. Shadow Stalker is probably going to be coming in through the back any second now..."

My breath hitched for just a second when she mentioned the name. I barely even noticed myself doing it, but Tattletale had. "Oh… you and Shadow Stalker have a history. But not as a cape… no, you have a history with her _civilian_ persona. You know her civilian identity? Oh, crap, this is why you blame the PRT for your trigger. Fuck, this is messed up. Hey, look, as a friend – am I a friend? I can help you with revenge against her if you want."

I was very tempted to take her up on her offer. If she was really either reading my mind or what, I wouldn't doubt that she was capable of it. But it was hard to trust someone who had a gun at your back.

Before I could reply, Shadow Stalker came stepping through the wall in full costume, crossbow in hand. Talk about good predictions.

"Stop right there, Shadow Stalker," Tattletale said. She held me close like a human shield, lining our bodies up closely and peeking just over my shoulder. She pointed her gun at the Ward. I just froze in place, not sure what to do.

Shadow Stalker quickly brought up her crossbow, but didn't shoot. If I had any doubts that it was Sophia, they were gone now. She didn't even care that I was a human shield, she was obviously willing to shoot me to get at Tattletale. I started shifting as many bots to my front as I could without anyone noticing.

Funny how I was more concerned at being shot by Sophia than by a literal villain whose real name I didn't even know holding a gun.

Tattletale whispered in my ear. "Wow, she hates you. She's going to use this as an excuse to beat you up while she takes me down. Probably accuse you of being an accomplice to doubly screw you over. Your bots can take a hit from her crossbow, right?"

I didn't move, but she was making perfect sense. My bots had finished forming an extra-thick layer of protection, enough to stop even the pointy tranquilizer darts. I just hope she didn't aim for my face.

"Give up. You can't hurt me," Shadow Stalker said. "You're weak. You don't do shit except bark. I bite."

"You sure about that? I'm psychic, you know," Tattletale said. "You keep telling yourself you're strong, but you can't do anything that matters. You think your crossbow is gonna help against an Endbringer? You're cannon fodder at best."

"Shut the fuck up. A weakling like you can only talk, and nothing you say even matters. Look at you, hiding behind a useless human shield."

What was she doing? Provoking Sophia? I could see her grip tightening on her crossbow. Tattletale definitely knew how to get under her skin. The way she tended to ramble, I had a hard time believing she didn't get under everyone's skin.

Tattletale whispered to me again. "She's going to aim for your neck. On my signal, jump." I shifted as many of my armored bots higher up my shirt without revealing them.

"Oh, I know everything. You only pick on people weaker than you so that you can _pretend_ to be strong. You stop at street level. Drug dealers and petty criminals. You've never even taken down a cape before, and you never will. The Undersiders fought _Lung_ and we're still standing."

"Shut up. Like you know anything, all you do is stand at the back and let your teammates do the fighting. Now get down, they aren't here to help you."

"Oh, I could beat you just fine. What, you manage to grab one gangly little hostage and you think that makes you a pro villain?"

"You're cute. You think you're a prowling panther, when really you're just _a kitten_. You can't beat any other Capes, only normal humans. You can't even beat me."

Even though Sophia was wearing a full face mask, I just knew that last sentence completely pissed her off. I couldn't help but let out a tiny snort in amusement when Tattletale said that. I hadn't seen anyone put Sophia down so easily. She actually took her eyes off Tattletale for a second to glare at me when I did that.

Tattletale shoved me from behind. I nearly lost my balance and barely comprehended the fact that I was suddenly moving towards Shadow Stalker. My legs, having been ready to hop up at Tattltetale's command, sprung without thinking.

I ended up doing a wild, flailing and ungraceful leap at Shadow Stalker. She fired her crossbow straight at me. The crossbow bolt hit my collarbone, cushioned by my bots, blocking the tranquilizer from getting injected into me. I was glad Tattletale had told me to jump; it really would have struck me in the neck if I hadn't. I nearly collided into her, but she deftly twisted out of the way and I sailed past her, collapsing on the ground.

Tattletale dodged to the side towards the desk and pointed her gun at Shadow Stalker before she could bring her other crossbow at the girl.

Shadow Stalker changed to her ghost form. Tattletale fired two shots at Shadow Stalker, and the bullets harmlessly passed through her Breaker form. At the same time, she swept her arm across the desk and knocked a desk lamp at her. As the cord passed through the ghostly body, she screamed in pain and reverted to her normal body. Tattletale took that opportunity to kick her crossbow away as she stumbled. Sophia charged at Tattletale, ready to take her down with her fists, but fell clumsily as her right leg suddenly kicked out from under her. Regent appeared behind her and jabbed his taser into her back, taking her down.

Apparently electricity forced her out of her shadow state. That was a detail I didn't know about. I wondered if I should electrify my locker to stop her from stealing my stuff, but that would be way too obvious that I was targeting her directly.

"Thanks for the save, Regent," Tattletale said.

Regent snorted. "I didn't come back here to save you, I just wanted to grab more cash than you can carry yourself. It's time to go, it's starting to get hot out there."

Tattletale rolled her eyes. "Then go get it," she said, jerking her head over at the vault.

While Regent ran to the vault, she grabbed the memory stick from the computer and held me again. To me, she said, "Get in touch if you ever want some advice. Hero or villain. Just sit back with the rest of the hostages and pretend you had nothing to do with this. You're just a victim." Regent took a minute to stuff another bag full of money, then tossed one to Tattletale. We marched out to the lobby again, and I had my hands up. It was still completely dark, but Grue began to retract his cloud so that Tattletale and Regent could see where they were going.

The view outside was still blocked, and sound was muffled as well. But I could tell that there was a battle going on outside, mostly against Bitch's dogs. Suddenly, the ceiling caved in. A beautiful blonde girl hit the floor of the bank in the classic heroic three-point landing. Glory Girl. What was she doing here? She wasn't one of the Wards.

"Alright, criminal scum! Give it up! You aren't getting away!"

Grue and Bitch had jumped onto the demon dogs, ready to flee already. Some of the hostages were being marched in front of the demon dogs. The jester, however, was holding a young girl in a hoodie with a knife to her throat as she backed up towards the exit.

"Ames! I swear, if you hurt her, I'm gonna..."

Wait. Ames? As in Amy Dallon? As in Panacea, Glory Girl's sister? Oh crap. I hadn't even noticed that she was here. I guess that explained why she covered her face with her hoodie; New Wave's capes were all famous and unfortunately didn't have a separate civilian life. For Panacea especially, I bet she couldn't walk ten steps without someone stopping her and asking for some healing.

Glory Girl was strong, angry, and reckless. Giant hole in the ceiling being a bright, shining example. I couldn't decide if it was a good or horrible idea to take her sister hostage. I just hoped the clown and the rest of the Undersiders didn't get smashed into pulp.

Right as the jester reached the dog, she let go of Amy and started to hop on. Glory Girl took that opportunity to rush the jester that had threatened her sister. She shoved Amy towards her sister, and Glory Girl twitched mid-flight like she was doing an aborted somersault. She didn't stop in time to catch her sister, and they crashed into each other instead. I saw a smirk on Regent's face as the clown hopped on to the giant dog just before they disappeared into the inky black smoke.

Glory Girl ended up smashing straight through the wall, tumbling end-over-end while Amy lay in a crumpled heap, moaning in pain.

The Undersiders took advantage of the commotion for the final retreat. Grue grabbed a few hostages as he retreated into the darkness - no police officer would risk shooting a hostage they couldn't see. They fled in the chaos that Glory Girl had caused.

I rushed over to Amy. Her powers were publicly known. She was the world's greatest healer – she could cure any disease, even regrow lost limbs sometimes, with just a touch... on anyone other than herself. I removed the bots that had been tending to the burns on my back and sent them to Amy.

Crap. She had a few minor cuts, which my bots could clean pretty easily. But she was clutching her arm, I figured it might have been broken. "Hey, are you okay? How's your arm?"

"Broken," Amy confirmed.

"I… I think I can help a little. I'll stabilize it, okay?"

Amy looked at me oddly. "Um… sure. You're a cape?" she groaned out. I couldn't heal a broken bone for her, but the best I could do was make my bots form a kind of scaffolding around her arm like a makeshift splint to make sure it didn't get worse. I sent my other bots to clean the wounds and pinch some wounds shut like stitches.

"Um… I'm new. I don't have a name yet. Just call me Taylor, I guess."

"Amy. Nice to meet you. Thanks for helping," she said. "If you don't want to be part of the cape scene, I'll keep your secret for you."

I nodded. "Thanks. It means a lot. I'll stay here until the ambulance comes. Um, I can only keep control of these things if I'm nearby."

Amy chuckled. "Funny. I've never been in this situation before. Strange to be on the other side. Can you pull a little bit that way? It'll set the bone properly..." She directed me carefully, but even so, she was suffering a lot of pain. She screamed through gritted teeth as we got it aligned better, and I got all my bots to reinforce the arm.

Glory Girl must have heard her, as she came rushing in looking like she was ready to murder me. "Ames! Get away from my sister, you-"

"Stop, Vicky! She's helping! The Undersiders are already long gone!" Amy held up her good hand. "Broken arm… Damnit, Victoria, you have to be more careful."

"Oh my god, Amy! I'm so sorry! Shit, that stupid Undersider did something to me and..."

Amy just shook her head. "Just… help the hostages. I'm fine here. She's looking after me."

I waved meekly. "Um… Hi."

Glory Girl smiled. "Thanks for helping my sister. You know, I think we owe you a dinner for this, at minimum." I almost squealed in delight. Me, dining with a local celebrity cape? I just nodded dumbly. I just hoped I didn't look too stupid.

"Great! You free tomorrow? We can meet at Fugly Bob's. They make the _best_ burgers. Hey, you got a boyfriend? He can come, too. We can make it, like, a triple date!"

"Vicky,_ go,"_Amy said to her sister, pointing at the mess in the bank with her good arm. When Vicky flew off, she whispered to me, "So... I noticed that you've got some pretty bad burns hidden under there. I could help get rid of the scars."

"Oh... yeah. That. I, uh, accidentally got caught in the crossfire when Lung went on a rampage. I wasn't ready to come out as a cape, so..."

Amy nodded. "Look, if everyone who had powers decided to jump out and fight Lung, I'd have even more dumbasses to heal. Or maybe less. If my sister didn't have her invulnerability, I'd be afraid for her every night. Are you using your powers for healing? Healers are pretty valuable to everyone."

My eyes drifted down at the basic first aid that I was giving her. "I don't know... I don't know much about medicine... I only know a bit about first aid."

"Well, just something to think about. Thanks for the help again." Amy smiled at me.

I smiled back. Did I just make a friend? Or two? After being friendless for so long, I had trouble remembering what it was like, or what I should do. Or what I had missed. Today had been one of the strangest days of my life. And I still hadn't deposited the money.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

I hope everyone's enjoying the story so far, and thanks for the reviews!

As much as I kinda dislike the Stations of the Canon trope, I played around with this a few times and decided the whole bank robbery thing was still the best way to get a few other plot points rolling along. At least things will start to diverge more from here.


	8. Interlude 2: Sophia

Interlude 2

Sophia growled as she took a chair positioned away from the other Wards. Nobody really paid her much attention; most of them were too busy staring at their hands or the table. Armsmaster, standing at the head of the table, eyed them all with stern frown. He crossed his arms. "Today's mission was a failure. I want you to figure out why."

"Aegis, Clockblocker. Why did you two switch costumes?" Sophia didn't even realize they had done that. She arrived a little late to the party, having to come from a bit further away. She hadn't discussed the strategy with the rest of them.

"We thought we could confuse them," Carlos said. "Trick them into attacking Clockblocker first, so he could freeze one of those giant dogs right away."

"Did it work?" Neither of them answered. The question was rhetorical. Armsmaster continued. "They have a high-level Thinker on their team. Did you think they would be fooled for even a second?"

"I'm sorry sir. I..."

"I don't need you to apologize. I need you to think. Analyze. Improve," Armsmaster said. "Now let's suppose they _were_ fooled for some reason. What else could have gone wrong?"

Dennis held his hand up. "I guess… if I didn't tag the dog fast enough, I could have been injured."

"That's right. There's a reason we want Aegis at the front of the fight. We make his costume distinctive bright red. It attracts attention. His powers are meant to take hits. We want _enemies_ to know this as well, so they know to hold back against everyone else. Villains or not, most are willing to follow the unwritten rules. The Undersiders are small-time, and have no kills to date. Baiting them into accidentally killing one of you helps nobody."

Sophia resisted the urge to scoff. It had been a stupid move, for sure, but she wouldn't have even cared if Clockblocker got himself killed. He annoyed her so much with what _he_ considered to be a smart mouth. But she only ever heard dumb shit spewing from him. If his dying earned the Undersiders a reputation for killing, then it would be even easier to justify if she "accidentally" used lethal force on them. Especially Grue.

Carlos hung his head low. "Sorry, sir. As the leader of the Wards team, I'm taking responsibility for the decision." The idea had seemed brilliant at the time, but they had only thought of it on the way to the bank. They'd fallen into the trap of thinking of all the ways it could go right, they didn't stop to think of how it could go wrong.

"Don't be so hard on yourself, Carlos. We discussed the strategy together. We all made the mistake as a group," Dean said, giving Carlos a pat on the one part of his back that didn't have holes or blood on it. Vista and Kid Win nodded.

Sophia just dropped her chin on to her hand. Good thing they couldn't see her roll her eyes through her mask. She couldn't stand this lovey-dovey group hug bullshit. Her whole team acted like weak herd of scared animals, huddling together like that.

"Kid Win. What was the weapon you used?" Armsmaster turned to Chris, who shrank back as his breath hitched.

"Um… I don't really have a name for it... I just finished building it." Chris rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"The name is unimportant," Armsmaster said. "What is it?"

"It's a cannon based on alternating EM and gravitic fields, so for now I'll just call it an Alternator Cannon..."

"This cannon. How powerful is it?"

"Um... Brute... four?" he said without any confidence, as if Armsmaster had the answer himself. Armsmaster _had_ confiscated the cannon immediately after the bank robbery, but even the experienced Tinker couldn't analyze new tech _that_ quickly.

"Any weapon capable of a Brute four takedown would be lethal to all non-Brutes it hit, unless it operates specifically with nonlethal methods. An EM-gravitic force projector simply applies direct force, if I'm not mistaken. Am I?"

"N.. no sir, you aren't. I thought it would be helpful against, you know, the giant dogs..."

Fucking hell, Sophia wanted to smack that dumbass. First you have a Tinker who couldn't even do math, and then he goes out and uses a lethal weapon in broad daylight.

Not that she had any problem with her teammates using powerful weapons – she thought the PRT was way too soft, and the Youth Guard just got in the way. She hated how the Wards program had muzzled her. She'd been making a real difference, teaching criminals lessons they wouldn't forget, before the damn PRT stopped her. Some criminals just didn't learn, and _needed_ to be put down permanently. Others were just that fucking tough – Hookwolf, Kaiser, Lung, among others. This was a town where a villain with car-sized demon dogs was considered a _small-time_ criminal. They needed hard-hitting weapons.

Except Sophia prided herself on being smart enough to keep a hidden stash, and do it at night, and off-patrol. Kid _fucking_ Win was such a loser, he couldn't even think of something that obvious. Sophia wasn't jealous of his power, but she was certain she could have done _way_ better than he did at it.

"Untested, and unapproved, Tinker-tech on the field. You _know_ exactly how many rules that broke."

Chris nodded quietly without answering.

"If you need more power against a tough Brute opponent, then call for PRT backup. Testing isn't meant to be done on the field, especially not a situation that involves civilian hostages, Kid Win. We need to know your weapon's strengths and weaknesses. Accuracy. Reliability. How it fits into the team dynamic. What's its major weakness that you saw today?"

"I… I have to mount on a tripod to operate it?"

"That's one of them. You're meant to be our aerial scout and mobile support. What happens when one of our most mobile members suddenly becomes rooted to the ground?"

Chris didn't answer, feeling ashamed of himself.

Dean gave Chris a light punch to the shoulder. "Hey, Chris, don't worry. Look, it's a good weapon, and I think we _can_ develop good strategies with it. Armsmaster is just saying that we need to figure out how to fit it in, right?"

Armsmastaer cut in. "No. It is unlikely such a weapon would ever be approved, especially now that the board believes you brought it out in secret specifically to undermine their authority. Moreover, there will be additional restrictions on your Tinkering –"

Chris's face turned to horror. "No..." he squeaked out quietly.

"– including a sign-in, sign-out system for your workshop, a cut to your Tinkering budget, and unscheduled inspections to your workshop by any board member at any time for the next three months."

Chris looked like he was in physical pain.

"I... I don't think he should take all the blame," Carlos said. "Sacrificing our most mobile member for more firepower is a strategic decision that affected the entire team. It's partly my fault for not seeing those issues."

Armsmaster nodded. "As for you, Gallant. Was it your call that brought Glory Girl to the scene?"

"Actually, it was her sister. She texted both of us when the robbery began," Dean answered. He knew everyone would suspect he was involved when Glory Girl was involved. They _were_ dating again, and he often skirted the line when it came to sharing intel. This time it really wasn't his fault, though.

"Do try to coordinate with other heroes when possible," Armsmaster said. That was probably the closest thing to a compliment they could expect today.

Dennis snorted. "Coordinate? With Collateral Damage Barbie? She does what she wants and we just have to plan around that."

Dean glared at Dennis. "Hey, don't call her that!"

Dennis shrugged. "Just because you're dating her doesn't mean it isn't true. I bet the damage she caused to the building costs more than what the villains managed to steal."

Carlos got up and pushed the two of them apart before the argument escalated. "Guys, drop it. That's not the point. We need to work with allies sometimes, and not all of them are just going to follow our orders even when we're working for the same goal. We just need to plan around that. Right, Armsmaster?"

"Correct. This is especially important during Endbringer fights. If you choose to join, you _will _be fighting alongside villains. I can give you recorded data on several non-Protectorate heroes, especially New Wave, as well as some known villains as well. This is something you need to account for in your plans. Other times, especially against S-class threats, we may potentially have to enact a truce."

Sophia hated that. They wouldn't have problems like that if they just _dealt_ with the criminals instead of slapping them with paper handcuffs and letting them walk free. Let 'em die, end of story.

Finally, Armsmaster turned to Sophia. "Shadow Stalker. What happened at the back of the bank?"

"I ran into someone," she said.

"Why didn't you escape immediately? If you were spotted, any stealth advantage is forfeit. That means it's time to regroup and develop a new strategy."

Sophia balled her fists tightly, feeling her nails dig into her palm. She didn't _run_. She was a fucking predator, and she sure as shit didn't show weakness in front of that loser _Hebert_ of all people. "I thought I could take them. It was just the Thinker."

Armsmaster tapped something on his suit. "A high-level thinker who has previously demonstrated the ability to formulate advanced escape strategies. According to witnesses, she also had a hostage. This sounds like an extremely high-risk situation."

"I could have taken them," Sophia muttered.

"The results say otherwise," Armsmaster said plainly.

"She fought dirty-" She started to retort.

"They're villains! Of _course_ they fight dirty!" Dean said.

"No, I mean, the hostage wasn't really a hostage! She's working with them! She's a villain too!"

Armsmaster frowned. "Witness reports say that she was taken at gunpoint. When the fight was over, she stayed behind to render first aid, according to Glory Girl. I find that hard to believe." He silently checked his lie detector. _68% chance of truth_. Hm. Not enough to confirm, but she probably suspected or believed it herself. Interesting. Might be cause for investigation, but he would put it at low priority. The girl had been helpful and stayed with Panacea when she was taken to the hospital, so they hadn't managed to contact her for an interview yet.

"If you believe the hostage was secretly an accomplice, then you were even further outnumbered. Even more reason to retreat. You will need to review risk assessment protocols and simulations. You were found unconscious after the battle. You could have been killed. You're lucky they were merciful."

Sophia fumed. She did _not_ run away from the _loser_. She was a predator, those scrawny bitches were prey. She didn't win by luck, she won by _skill_. _They_ were the ones who had gotten lucky. And she sure as fuck didn't depend on the _mercy_ of her prey.

"Wait, you're calling her a villain? What's her power?"

"Fuck if I know. Something to do with hair, I bet," Sophia answered. It couldn't have just been coincidence that, just after they tried to cut Hebert's hair, their own hair started falling out. They hadn't noticed the first few days, but tracing it back, it made sense. It figured that loser would trigger from something as dumb as a fucking haircut. And get an equally weak power from it.

"Hair? What makes you say that?"

"Just look at me!" Sophia snarled as she finally took off her mask. The hair covering went with it, and now she was practically sporting a buzz cut. There were a few normal-length hairs left on her head, mostly at random though, making it especially patchy and ugly. It was quite possibly the worst haircut any of them had ever seen. She hadn't shown herself outside of her costume even to her teammates for the past week, having chosen to change before arriving.

"She's this loser at school that has no friends! I think she probably triggered when someone made fun of her hair, and now me, along with any other girl with better hair than her, is losing their hair." Sophia didn't want to give away the fact that she and Emma had specifically been targeted by Taylor. That would draw too much attention. Just pretend she had been caught in the crossfire.

Armsmaster didn't quite understand fashion or style. He understood function. And, to be frank, short hair was far more functional in the field than long hair. Less things for enemies to grab, less chance of snagging on random equipment. He would have approved Shadow Stalker's new haircut for its practicality, except she started yelling.

Oddly enough, his truth detector was also running low. _25% chance of truth_. Either his lie detector needed more refinement, or Shadow Stalker was making things up. Then again, the software was still in beta. She was already agitated because of the failed mission. Teenage emotions ran higher than with adults, throwing off the detector's accuracy. And he had yet to fully calibrate perspiration and circulation graphs for people of darker skin. He didn't discount either possibility, but he knew the software wasn't good enough to judge people with just yet.

"Are you certain she is the parahuman? How have you confirmed it?"

"I just... I... no," Sophia said with an angry huff. She had to admit there was always a possibility that it wasn't Hebert. A small one, sure. She could feel it down to her bones, but Armsmaster would mostly dismiss her _feelings_ as pointless, non-objective evidence. It could have been someone wanting to frame Hebert, because everyone knew she hated her, Emma, and Madison. But she _knew_ it was Hebert.

"No injury, no permanent damage. I can't seem to detect the method of damage. Maybe a capillokinetic Shaker? Did she touch you?"

"At school? We bump into each other in class all the time," Sophia said. "You need to come to Winslow and arrest her."

Armsmaster shook his head. "Not without evidence. And we are not outing the identity of a cape, _if she is a cape_, who by all public accounts was a victim and acted heroically under threat."

"A fucking hero?" Sophia shouted angrily as she pointed at her head. "You think someone who does this is a _hero?"_

The other Wards were standing far away from Sophia. They didn't want to be part of this fight. Dennis was tempted to crack a joke if it had been anyone other than Sophia, but he had learned that she couldn't take a joke. She'd punch him. Not a friendly punch, either. A straight-for-a-broken-nose punch. Then again, he hadn't been able to voice his feelings on Sophia for a while. As long as she didn't hear...

"Well, at least her hair matches her personality now. Prickly and not much of it," he whispered to his teammates.

"Shut up, Dennis," Carlos whispered back.

"As I already said, we will investigate. Do you believe she had a personal grudge against you?" Armsmaster asked.

"Who _doesn't?"_ Dennis whispered.

"Shut _up_, Dennis," Carlos repeated.

"Hell if I know," Sophia said, crossing her arms and avoiding Armsmaster's gaze.

_5% chance of truth_. Armsmaster noted that his lie detector flashed a silent warning at him. A number this low was almost certainly a lie, despite the experimental nature of the lie detecting software. Then again, Sophia was of African descent, in a school with large numbers of Empire Eighty-Eight members. Her vague answer didn't inherently indicate deception. The Hebert girl was white, but there were no other indicators to indicate she was a neo-Nazi.

"So you haven't had any significant interaction with this person before?"

Sophia huffed angrily. "She keeps trying to get me in trouble. Blaming me for random shit just because she's a weak, unpopular loser."

_8% chance of truth._ Armsmaster noted the consistently low score. He'd developed this system with Dragon. Together, they were two of the best Tinkers in the world. Granted, the system needed more testing, so maybe he would save these recordings and run them through the software again when it was improved.

"And you're sure she's a cape? How do you know?"

Sophia grabbed the last remaining strands of her hair and lifted them up with her hands. "Look at this! You think anyone could do this _without_ cape powers?"

Dennis leaned over to Carlos. "Shaker 1, definitely. Causes hair in the area of effect to fall out. The Barber of Brockton Bay," he said in a low voice.

"Cockblocker, as your team leader I am _ordering_ you to shut up," Carlos whispered back.

Armsmaster noted the 90% truth rating. The only thing that was _probably_ truthful so far. But she only stated the obvious. He hadn't detected anything on Sophia that would indicate a chemical or biological agent, which would generally lead to a Shaker power. The exact nature of those were much harder to pin down, and often needed to be witnessed in the act.

"The fact that a power was used is not in question. I'm asking how sure you are that the _owner_ of such power is the same girl who was taken hostage at the bank."

Being a Tinker himself, he suspected the possibility of a Tinker as well. Then again, it was easy to pin everything on Tinkers; they had the greatest flexibility given enough time. He had found some micro-machines in ABB territory after Lung's last rampage. He also knew the ABB had recently recruited a new Tinker, though they primarily suspected the Tinker specialized in explosives. That was unconfirmed, though. The micromachines he found could have done the damage to Shadow Stalker's hair, and she may have picked some up when patrolling in the area.

It was a shame the machines had self-destructed unexpectedly before he could properly analyze them. He would have wanted to get the samples to Dragon, but that was no longer possible. In any case... why would Bakuda specifically want to cut Shadow Stalker's hair? It didn't make sense.

Then again, why would a supposed villain be abandoned by her teammates and stay with Panacea? It sounded far too elaborate and convoluted. It didn't quite make sense either.

In the meantime, though… he had to know more about this cape. "So you suspect this girl is a new cape? Did you try to introduce her to the Wards? Did you witness the trigger event?"

Sophia stiffened almost imperceptibly, but for his social analysis suite it was clear as day. "I don't know, okay? Maybe she has a shit home life."

_0.1% chance of Truth_. Curiouser and curiouser.

"We will put that matter aside for now. This is also the first major encounter with the Undersiders. What can we say for certain about their powers or how they operate?"

Sophia wanted to say more, but without any evidence to add, she didn't have anything else to pin on Taylor Hebert. She also didn't want to admit that she had been taken out by a desk lamp, either.

"Regent has a taser in his scepter," she said.

"Circus is able to put things into some kind of pocket dimension," Missy said. "In fact, I could sense a weird space-warp near her every time she took her weapons out."

"Well, that would explain how she's so good at stealing things," Gallant noted. "But aren't her jobs usually more lucrative? Like, twenty thousand and up, minimum? Expensive art and jewelry or technology?"

"True. We suspect that's why she prefers to be independent," Armsmaster said. "Though given the Undersiders' theft today, it's far below her usual take, assuming the amount was split five ways."

"How much do the Undersiders usually steal on their jobs?"

"I don't think the other villains reported their losses to us," Dennis said with a grin.

"Did Circus really join the Undersiders?" Kid Win asked.

"Unlikely given her past history, but given the increasing aggressiveness between the ABB and Empire lately, Circus may have joined them seeking protection," Armsmaster said.

A buzzer sounded, along with flashing lights. "Panacea and Glory Girl are here for medical aid," came a voice over the intercom.

Most of the Wards didn't bother masking up again, though Sophia did. Apparently they were mostly friends with each other at Arcadia, so there was no point. Sophia, though, didn't want too many people to recognize her wherever she went.

Panacea walked in with her arm in a cast.

"Oh wow, how did that happen?" Carlos asked.

Panacea sighed. "Don't ask, it's... a dumb story," she said, her eyes flickering over to her sister. Glory Girl was uncharacteristically quiet. "Carlos, if you want to begin..."

"Ah, I'm fine for now," Carlos said. "Dennis might need it more than me."

"Just a scratch," Dennis responded. "You, on the other hand, are _still_ bleeding over the floor. You know we're the ones who are going to have to clean it up later."

"Alright," Carlos agreed. He took off his glove and presented his bare hand to Panacea.

"While you're here, Panacea, could you give us any details about the girl who stayed with you?" Armsmaster asked.

Panacea narrowed her eyes. "Why would you need to know anything about her?" she asked.

"Shadow Stalker suspects that she may have been working with the Undersiders as some kind of hidden member," Armsmaster said.

Panacea shook her head. "I don't see any reason to believe that. She's very kind. All she did was give me first aid. She didn't do anything before the heist as far as I could see, she was just standing in line. If you suspect that she's a cape, then you need to bring her in and interview her. I won't be party to any unmasking."

Armsmaster noted his lie detector's rating on his HUD. He was satisfied with the answer. "No, I simply wanted your opinion. I don't believe there's any further concern."

Sophia gritted her teeth. She had tried to steer Armsmaster to arrest Hebert, but the damn bitch was getting away with it. She got Panacea on her side? Nobody was going to question the city's pet healer. Not only that, Hebert got away with repeatedly calling her a _weakling _at school. Hebert made a fool of her at the bank. That girl was pissing her off more and more, and she needed to be put in her place.

"I don't need any healing. I'm out," she said, shoving her chair back angrily before stomping out of the meeting room.

* * *

The next day, after completing hours of remedial courses later, Sophia needed to work off some steam. Fucking Piggot had grounded the entire Wards team because they failed so badly. She wanted to be out patrolling, catching actual criminals. Sure, the other Wards were also stuck reviewing Rules of Engagement and Basic Patrol classes as punishment, but it wasn't as if _they_ were any good at catching villains. Sophia had actually caught _dozens_ of criminals before the PRT had put her on a leash and threatened juvie.

Now Piggot was punishing _her_ while letting real criminals walk free. This was so fucking backwards!

Her head was nearly bald, and she was certain that Hebert was the cause even if the other heroes weren't taking her seriously. She was certainly a cape, but one that played tricks and couldn't couldn't fight face to face. She was a fucking leech, a disease. She must have allied with the Undersiders – even the Empire wouldn't take a loser like her.

Pretending to be a hostage at the bank pissed her off. Who does that? Who was she fooling? What were the chances that Hebert just happened to be at the bank when the Undersiders robbed it? What were the chances that she just happened to be picked as a hostage? Sophia didn't believe in chances, she didn't believe in luck. The strong survived, the weak died. That was all. And Hebert was weak, so she had gone running to a bunch of other weaklings that would take her in.

Hebert had tried to hide the laugh, but it didn't manage to slip past her. She _knew_ what she had been doing. That fucking pest didn't didn't fear Sophia. She didn't know her place. Sophia was at the top of the food chain, Hebert was at the bottom. She thought she could hide and pretend she was innocent while working with the villains? She needed to remind her what a _real_ hero did to the scum in the city.

Hebert had powers and she was a pest. But whatever power she had, it was obviously nothing to worry about. Garbage in, garbage out - no way a weakling like her could get a strong power. That's why she had resorted to some stupid shit like cutting her hair. She couldn't fight, so she pulled underhanded crap like that. Sophia didn't have proof, so the PRT wouldn't allow her to take down Hebert, and the Protectorate was doing nothing about it.

The Protectorate were sheep. They had stopped her when she was just getting good at stopping villains. They grounded the whole Wards team for trying to stop some villains. They shut her down when she told them exactly where to find a villain. It pissed her off. But unlike the other Wards, she had experience taking out villains without PRT backup – or permission.

She still had her old costume back from her early days as an independent hero. It was simple, cobbled together from a spray-painted hockey mask, dark clothing, and mountain biker pads. Nothing like the armour plating and specialized equipment that the Protectorate had given her during her "rebranding" but against Hebert, it would be more than enough. She also left her crossbow behind – no need for it. Just a knife and some chloroform. Maybe some duct tape. Just enough for a bit of payback, put a healthy dose of fear into the bitch.

It was time to teach Hebert a lesson.

* * *

Emma was kind enough to tell her exactly where Hebert lived, and she was smart enough to not ask questions. Hell, she even told her about a weird broken step in front and a creaky gate to watch out for. Sophia chose to head over to at two in the morning. She was sure that the Heberts would be asleep. She found the house pretty easily, and the dark streets kept her hidden. No witnesses.

She prowled around the perimeter of the property first, making sure there were no motion sensors or other alarm systems. It was unlikely she had any; most houses in this area of town were barely being held together. Most of the people who lived here were lower-middle class, and they couldn't afford advanced security systems.

The curtains were mostly closed, and none of the lights were on. No dogs in the area to bark at her either, which was good. She did take the time to check where the power lines connected to the house and any outdoor lights. It was a lesson she had learned the hard way when she had first started out; accidentally running through some live wires in her shadow state. It nearly got her killed.

Like how Hebert and Tattletale had fucking got her at the bank. The memory just pissed Sophia off even more.

One of the few things she was grateful for with the Wards program were the special Tinkertech goggles Armsmaster had given her that gave x-ray vision of wiring in walls. But she couldn't use that here tonight; it probably had tracking tech built into it. She had to rely on her old skills. Good thing that she always kept up her training and didn't let it go to waste. She didn't ever want to become _reliant_ on the PRT, after all.

She used her basic parkour skills and a few seconds later, she was standing on the patio roof. She paused for a minute, waiting and listening. She peered into a window, but trying to see between the curtains didn't give her a great view inside. Climbing up to the second floor was the loudest part of the whole mission. She wanted to make sure she hadn't woken anyone up. As quiet as she was, some people were incredibly light sleepers.

She didn't hear any noise or notice any movement at all through the window, and was satisfied that nobody had noticed. She stalked around the outside of the second floor, carefully peering through the cracks between the curtains of each window to figure out which room was Taylor's. She came across Mr. Hebert's room first, who was snoring loudly. That would help cover her entrance, actually. She moved on, and the next room was obviously Taylor's. She even had an Alexandria poster in her room. What a joke.

Taylor was curled up and hiding completely under her blanket. Good, she wouldn't even see or hear her coming. Sophia phased into her shadow state and silently hopped through the window; it was the only place guaranteed not to have any wiring running through it. She crept up to the bed and pulled out the chloroform, ready to grab Taylor and knock her out. Three… two… one…

She moved away the blanket, only to find clumped up laundry underneath. What?

She sensed danger, and immediately shifted into her shadow state preemptively. She felt a shock of static electricity from the carpet, the pain multiplied by her sensitivity in shadow state. She shifted back to normal for just a second as she winced in pain.

CLANG


	9. Examination 1

Examination 1

The paramedics decided I had been doing such a good job with Amy's splint that they had me escort her until the real doctors could properly put her arm in a proper cast. Amy and I chatted along the way while she lay in the stretcher and I sat beside her. I was wary of exposing my powers to the paramedics, but Amy vouched for me, and apparently knew them personally. It made sense if she spent a whole lot of time at the hospital, especially tending to emergencies.

The paramedics had been quite respectful understood the importance of secret identities. Rescuing downed heroes, sometimes having to remove costumes to treat injuries, was apparently part of their training. While I wasn't injured, they applied the same training and didn't ask for my identity at all.

Strangely enough, even though it was only a broken arm, Amy was rushed to the hospital with full sirens and lights. I suppose when it came to Panacea, they didn't want to take any chances at all.

"So… um…" Amy was looking kind of embarrassed. "I was saying the first time..."

"What is it?" I asked.

She leaned in to my ear and whispered, "Your back. Do you want me to heal it?"

It was really nice of her to keep that a secret. Patient confidentiality and all. "Yeah. Thanks a lot," I whispered back. Then a thought crossed my mind. "Hey, just as an idea... can you do it extra slow? I want to watch how it works as much as I can."

Amy looked surprised. "You can watch? It's on your back..."

"Through my bots," I explained. I closed my eyes so I could focus on what my bots were seeing. Well, it wasn't so much seeing, more "feeling", since not much light was shining through my shirt. I shifted almost all of my bots to my back over the burns.

"Okay, I'm going to start with the top left and work my way down," she said.

My robots watched as scar tissue moved out of the way, blood vessels opened up, fresh cells flowed into the space where my burns and scar tissue were. The skin moved out of the way, old scars basically dissolved. Cells didn't divide to replace them, they were just… _constructed_ through Amy's power. There was so much to take in at once.

"Wait, wait, wait!" I said. "Can you slow down even more? You're doing so much at once!"

"Oh… huh… sorry. Nobody's ever requested that before," Amy said. She continued again, at half the speed. It was _still_ too fast.

"Can you do it at, like, one tenth the speed you're going right now?" I asked. "Sorry, it's just so much to take note of and remember."

"If I went any slower, we'd take all day," Amy said. "We're, like, two minutes from the hospital."

"I think it might be better we don't do this all at once," I said. "Um... can we continue this when we go for burgers with your sister? If... if she's still okay with that..." I said.

Amy gave me a funny look. "You are _so_ weird."

I just shrugged and laughed. "I've heard it's a Tinker thing. Once Tinkers get an idea, nothing else matters until you get a chance to actually build it. The wound is nothing, I've been dealing with it for weeks. I _have_ to know how to design a bot that can do even one percent of what you did!"

"Well, you'd better not forget to eat," Amy said. "Healing takes a lot of energy from your body. Maybe we should finish it off when you have lunch with us? Does tomorrow work?"

A smile stretched between my reddening cheeks. It was really happening! I was actually getting to know Panacea and Glory Girl! "Um, yeah, that would be nice," I said.

"Alright, what time works for you? I'm pretty sure this arm is only going to need a cast and not much else, I'll be good to walk around tomorrow."

"Uh... whatever works for you," I said. "Do you want to sleep in tomorrow? Or is that too soon?"

"Don't worry, I don't have any plans," Amy said. "Especially since everyone's probably going to tell me to stop working for a while. As if I need my full arm to heal other people," she scoffed. "But the earlier the better. That way Vicky won't have any time to drag some blind dates into it."

"Oh... is it that bad?" I asked.

"She just doesn't _get_ that I'm not... interested right now," Amy said. "You should watch out, she might try to set you up with some of the guys she knows too."

I had nearly forgotten what it was like to have _friends_. I wasn't ready for a boyfriend. What was I supposed to do? Heck, what kind of guys did Victoria know? What if they compared me to Victoria? I'd never be able to compare!

The deer-in-headlights look on my face made Amy laugh.

* * *

After my first ambulance ride – at least, the first one I remembered getting – Amy, Victoria, and I chatted together at the hospital until my dad arrived to pick me up. As everyone had suspected, it was just a broken arm and some other minor scrapes. She knew all the doctors and nurses there; they were happy to put her on the fast track to getting a cast.

In fact, I was pretty impressed with how quickly things moved; apparently Victoria had flown ahead of the ambulance to tell the emergency department what to expect. They were surprised I didn't have a phone to call my dad; Victoria lent me hers. She even asked to save the number so she could call me later.

That was an interesting experience. I hadn't given my number out to anyone for... well, ever? I don't remember if I had to give Emma my number; our parents had known each other since before we were born. Also I wasn't even remotely prepared; I ended up using my bots to write her number on my arm until I got home with a pen.

Without a more convenient way to contact them, Victoria recommended that I message her on "the forums." I knew she meant Parahumans Online, the de-facto website for just about all things cape-related. I used to lurk the forums before but never created a user account. Emma and I used to daydream about becoming heroes themselves, coming to the forum to keep up about the news. I pretty much gave up on the website since the bullying started, the dream dying along with her friendship. After today, though, I knew that there was no way for me to escape the world of Capes, and I had better keep up with cape news as much as I could.

I still had yet to decide on a username, but Victoria told me hers so that I could message her. When I got home, I decided to get a handle on the PHO community while my bots worked away in the basement.

**Welcome to the Parahumans Online Message Boards**  
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**Topic: Brockton Bay Bank Bust!  
In: News and Events **► **USA East **► **Brockton Bay**

►**DippityDoo**(Original Poster)  
Posted on 4 Mar 2011:

The Undersiders hit Brockton Bay Central Bank got hit today. They fought the Wards and got away clean. Pretty scary.

►**WinRAWR  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

I heard Barbie was there. Collateral Damage: One ceiling, one wall.

►**CapeGrape  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Who are the Undersiders? I haven't heard of them. How could they take on the Wards AND Glory Girl and win? How powerful are they?

►**Yipper  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Any details on the heroes? Why was it just the Wards? WTF was Armsmaster doing?

►**TommyFun  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

CapeGrape, the Undersiders have been around for a little while. They're small time. Or at least, they were. Just minor robberies like hitting a laundromat, a nightclub, a small casino, shit like that. I guess they've been getting bolder. They've never been caught, they don't usually take down other capes. They're just really good at getting away.

►**Gwooopiste  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Tommy I heard those places are actually money laundering fronts for the gangs. Does that make the Undersiders actually heroes?

►**hawnkytawnk  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Don't be stupid, they just robbed a bank. They're villains.

►**KinOfPindles  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Maybe BBCB is a front for the gangs too!

►**pair_of_docks  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Listening to your dumb ideas is making me lose IQ

►**Bagrat (Veteran Member) (The Guy in ****the Know)  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

I've managed to dig up a few more details. Since it happened during lunch break, one of the Arcadia students (Panacea) went to visit the bank. Her first contact at the sign of trouble was her sister, who was the one to alert the other Wards who attend Arcadia.

The Protectorate members were on another mission, currently still classified.

All the Wards were in attendance, and the Undersiders managed to flee before the PRT or Protectorate could arrive in time. This mostly fits their M.O., they have a very good sense of timing and escape.

Of note, the independent villain Circus was seen aiding them; we don't know if she has permanently joined them or if it was a temporary alliance.

Total money stolen was under $50,000.

►**Lordenglish  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Well, those small-timers managed to take down Shadow Stalker at least.

►**Point_me_at_the_sky (Verified Cape)  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

They had hostages. Including my sister. Fuck those guys.

►**WoolyWinker  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Wow, talk about brass balls the size of boulders.

►**LaughterhouseEight  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Holy crap, they took Panacea hostage? There's a fine line between brave and stupid, and they are waaaaay into stupid territory.

►**o0O-Jaynor-O0o  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

HAHAHA, sounds like a small-time group is getting too cocky. $20 says they piss off the Triumvirate by accident and get vaporized by next month.

►**WinRAWR  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

No, I bet they'll be taken down by the regular gangs way before that. All that work, $50k split 5 ways? Even the druggie Merchants know how to make a profit when they do a crazy crime

**_Jump to page: 1, _****_2_****_, _****_3_****_, _****_4_**

I stopped reading that thread. Nothing but speculation and random comments for pages and pages onwards. They didn't know anything I didn't already see firsthand, nor did they know anything that wasn't already on the Parahumans Wiki. Most of what people were talking about I could have refuted if I bothered to register an account and correct them, but I was too lazy.

Hell, I was certain I already knew more about the Undersiders than anyone else on the forums, and what happened at the bank. Even so, I still didn't know much. Clearly money hadn't been the priority for the Undersiders – was that just a diversion? Tattletale had been pulling some files off the bank's computers, but the way she was talking seemed like she wasn't doing that with her boss's knowledge.

I still didn't really know what to make of Tattletale and the other Undersiders. For one thing, she _had _asked for my help, and they had helped me. On the other... they were villains. I didn't want to say anything online and point any fingers just yet. See if I could catch any more news about them.

As I scrolled through, another thread caught my eye.

**In: Capes **► **Cape Sightings**

**Topic: Panacea in the Hospital – and not at work!**

►**UnrealHumanBean**** (Original Poster)  
**Posted on 4 Mar 2011:

I was sitting in Brockton Bay General today feeling like shit. Long lineup in the ER, apparently I'm not that important. Guess who flies in? Glory Girl. Obviously invincible girl doesn't need healing, so she must be taking her sister to the hospital, right?

So I'm all happy, thinking that Panacea will be here healing everyone. Even if she doesn't tend to me personally, that means other people are getting out of the way and a doctor can see me earlier, right?

NOPE

Glory Girl talks to the triage nurse, turns around, and comes back with Panacea on a wheelchair. Wheels her straight into the ER. She was holding her arm. Some other girl also went in with them, don't know who she was.

►**ThePowerofBull  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Wow, how did she get injured? I hope there isn't anyone crazy enough to actually attack Panacea.

►**WoolyWinker  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

The Empire would come down on their heads for sure. Panacea's healed some of them before. Not to mention all the heroes who owe her their lives.

►**WinRAWR  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Brockton Bay bank robbery. See the thread. She was a hostage.

►**ErrHed  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

WHAT. Who are these crazy mofos?

_7 posts have been moved. Brockton Bay Bank Robbery discussion should be in the appropriate thread. - __**A_Real (Admin)**_

►**ArmedAndLegged  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

I'm more interested in who the other girl was. New cape?

►**Point_me_at_the_sky (Verified Cape)  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

She's a friend. Please respect their privacy.

►**xX_Void_Cowboy_Xx  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

_Post deleted._

_You have been banned for 1 week for this post. Discussion of civilian identities, cape or not, is prohibited on PHO boards. You should know the rules by now – __**TinMother**_

►**CorgiJockey  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

Wait, isn't Panacea a healer? Why can't she heal herself?

►**-==Gradius==-  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

No, she can only heal other people. It's a Manton Limit thing

►**CorgiJockey  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

How does that even work? I thought Manton limits meant powers can't affect other people directly?

►**Grackenator  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

If that was true then she wouldn't be able to heal anyone, lol

►**CorgiJockey  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

That's what I'm saying, how do Manton Limits even work?

►**-==Gradius==-  
**Replied on 4 Mar 2011:

They work the same way all powers work: bullshit

**_Jump to page: 1, _****_2_**

I was glad that at least some people would be looking out for me, but I also knew that speculation would never stop. Tabloids were never in danger of going out of business. Just being seen near Panacea already led people to investigate who I was, maliciously or not. If, or when, I decided to come out as a full-on cape, this kind of speculation and attention would be non-stop. Good thing I had been mostly overlooked for now, but I knew it wouldn't last.

It wasn't really the weird internet stalkers I was worried about. It was the actual gangsters who may have found out about me. I was already on the lookout for ABB gang members who might have found me, looking to kill me on their boss's behalf. I didn't know how many may have seen Void_Cowboy's post before it had been taken down, nor did I know how accurate he might have been.

Lung ruled by fear, since the ABB didn't have as many capes as the Empire. He was powerful, but he couldn't be everywhere at once. He maintained a reputation for overwhelming force and retaliating with double the amount of destruction if he was attacked. A sort of mutually-assured destruction, in that sense. The fact that I ended up helping the Undersiders would probably mean he blamed me for their robbery as much as them. I kept my bots spread far and wide around the house for several blocks. Even if I couldn't fight them, if anyone came in the middle of the night, I would at least have enough warning to wake up dad and run for safety.

Despite all the worry that reading the internet forums had given me, there was something else that stuck out. Glory Girl called me a friend. In public. Not while just being polite in my company. Huh.

I couldn't wait to go at meet them again tomorrow. I just had to make sure I had enough bots ready for when Amy healed me.

I was busy rebuilding my bots with a design more suited for sensing cells and cell parts, determining the difference between different types of molecules, like fat versus protein versus water. I knew I wouldn't be able to make a perfect sensory bot by tomorrow, but it would be awkward if I kept being so fussy about my own healing. It was enough of a favour that she was doing to get rid of my scar tissue; I didn't want to inconvenience her any more.

Still, I stayed up overnight redesigning and building up my new bots. I didn't intend to really mass-manufacture these; they were too highly specialized. I just needed enough to cover a small section of my back to sense what Amy was doing.

* * *

The sun had come up again before I realized I really should take a nap before going out to meet with Amy and Victoria. I didn't want to see them only to fall flat on my face, after all. Thankfully, my alarm clock was one thing I hadn't yet cannibalized for parts yet, and I set it to just before noon. I didn't have as many bots as I wanted, but I had enough.

At noon, I headed out to for lunch with Amy and Victoria, hoping for the best. I still didn't have my own cell phone, but Amy had left her number with me. I guess I could call her on a pay phone if anything happened. Now, I just needed to find Fugly Bob's. I'd heard of the place, but never eaten there myself. It was a greasy burger joint, but not exactly fast food. Top-notch burgers that were more expensive than standard fast food. Popular with Arcadia and Immaculata kids (who didn't watch their weight), not so much for the Winslow crowd. I guess a hero like Glory Girl could afford it, both in terms of money and calories.

It turned out it wasn't too far from the Docks, sitting near the end of the Boardwalk. It had a nice view of the water and was still on the "safer" area of downtown. The smell of deep fryers and beef saturated my senses long before I arrived. Inside, I instantly spotted the unmistakable fountain of blonde hair that belonged to Glory Girl. I wondered if she had an extra superpower that made her look like she was in a shampoo commercial at all times.

They were sitting at the corner of the restaurant, about as secluded as the place could get. Amy was almost invisible next to her, slouched over with curly brown hair. She perked up and waved at me with one arm – the other was in a cast. I walked over to the table and joined them. Victoria looked rather sullen. "Don't mind Vicky," Amy said. "She's been grounded."

It seemed like a family issue, but with a family full of Capes, it was also the kind of thing that would probably end up all over the forums. The bad side of being on a team with a "no secret identity" policy.

Victoria perked up a little though and gave me a smile. "But I _was_ allowed to come out just to say thank you to you, so thanks!"

"Uh, for helping Amy, or for getting you out of the house?"

"Why not both?" Victoria beamed. I suddenly felt a lot happier, just looking at her beautiful, perfect smile... directed straight at...

"Vicky... aura," Amy said.

"Oh, sorry," Victoria said. The feeling mostly disappeared, though I think I still felt cheered up that Glory Girl was thanking me personally. Probably. Master powers were weird to think about it, but at least I knew Glory Girl was no Heartbreaker.

"So yeah, after this lunch, she gets no solo patrols or dates until my arm heals," Amy said.

"Yeah, I couldn't even bring Dean or introduce you to any of his friends," Victoria said. "So, instead of it being a triple date, I guess it's just us girls!"

"Thank goodness," Amy muttered.

"So, you seeing anyone, Taylor?" Victoria asked.

"Um... no," I answered awkwardly. I shrank down a little. How could I compare to Glory Girl?

"Aw, I thought a nice girl like you would deserve the best guy on the planet," Victoria said with a grin. I just blushed harder. It was honestly the nicest thing anyone's said to me in a long, long time. And she didn't seem to be sarcastic about it. A little hyperbolic, but it seemed to me that Victoria didn't do anything by halves.

Amy patted me on the shoulder. "Don't worry, boys aren't everything. It's just Vicky who's obsessed with pairing people up."

Victoria laughed. "Forget about it for now. I want to thank you for helping out my sister," she said. "So order anything you want. It's on me!"

I looked down the menu. Unsure of what was good, I just picked Fugly Bob's Signature Burger combo. Victoria chose the Double Double and a milkshake, while Amy settled for just an order of cheesy bacon fries. Victoria flew – she seemed to take every opportunity to fly when she could (not that I could blame her) – over to the counter to place the orders. Amy turned to me and asked, "So… that power of yours… how does it work?"

"I just control a small swarm of robots," I said. "I only just learned some basic first aid… but I'm trying to get better at it. I've decided to stay out of gang fights for now, but I still want to help people. So maybe I can find a way to use my bots in medicine?"

"And I suppose med school is going to take too long," Amy pointed out.

I nodded. "Well, that and I don't think med school will teach me how to use my power to help people, not exactly. Maybe some kind of targeted healing. I think I can build my bots even smaller, and I have near perfect control. I'd need your advice for the design, though."

Amy nodded. "I see. Tinker? Medical tech isn't your specialty, is it? It's just personal interest."

"Yeah. I think my specialty is just large swarms of small, simple bots. What I do with them... I have to learn on my own," I explained. "For now, I think they're good enough to clean wounds, apply medicine, maybe stitch together wounds. I'll be able to make bots smaller than a blood cell soon," I explained. "If I learn more about biology I'd know how to design my bots better."

Amy put a hand to her chin. "Interesting. I'm pretty unique in the sense that I treat diseases at every level, from entire limbs down to DNA repair. Most of medicine has to deal with chunks of tissue, or a type of receptor spread through the whole body. Other healer powers often just boost the body's own ability to heal instead of directly targeting diseases. Everyone's different."

"Yeah, I think I wouldn't be able to do anything that wouldn't be possible with advanced technology," I said. "I have no power over biology specifically."

"Still, new surgical tools and techniques have made a huge difference in medicine. Just because your power doesn't specifically say 'healing' doesn't mean you can't do it."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I said.

"On that note, do you want me to finish healing you?" Amy asked.

"Oh yeah! I spent all night making new bots that would let me sense more of what you were doing," I said. "Let me get them into position."

I watched, with greater clarity than yesterday, as cells moved, proteins and lipids and water moved en masse and formed into cells. Hm. I definitely couldn't copy what Amy was doing. She was pretty much just arranging things at the molecular level to create new cells. But I was getting a very good sense of how different cell types were arranged, at least for the skin. I was able to "see" the microscopic structure of the tissue and get a better intuitive sense of what it "looked" like than what I got out of a textbook, or what I could see with my own eyes.

I was starting to realize that this really could be a possibility. My bots _could_ differentiate cell types and sometimes even cell condition. I didn't know exactly what the possibilities were for this – I'd need to consult with Amy and doctors to really know. A few more redesigns would really help me explore how much further I could go down that avenue.

"Thanks, Amy. That was really informative," I told her.

Vicky floated back to us, carrying a tray with far larger portions of food than I expected. She grinned. "Wow, Ames. Are you looking to take on an apprentice?"

I chuckled quietly. Yeah, that would be a dream come true, wouldn't it? Apprenticed to one of the greatest celebrity capes in the _world_.

"You know, that might be a good idea," Amy said.

What. I turned to stare at her. "Really?"

"Yeah. You don't have a team right now, right? Is there a reason you haven't joined the Wards?" she asked.

I lowered my eyes. "I... have my reasons."

"Still, not everyone's got invincibility. You've heard the PRT line, right? Independent heroes don't last long. You either join a team or get forced into a gang... what was the number? Fifty percent in three months or something?" Victoria said, face scrunching up trying to remember. "Well whatever it is, I heard Brockton Bay's even worse than the national average."

I nodded. I had forgotten the exact numbers too, but it had been in the pamphlet at the PRT building. I didn't have a real plan, but merely keeping my head down wasn't enough. Not enough to scratch the Tinker itch. I hadn't thought about what teams I _could_ join. New Wave was always there, of course, but... it felt weird asking to join, since they were all family. "You... you guys would take me?"

"Of course! I'd love for you to join! I'll put in a good word for you with auntie Sarah," Vicky said. "You'd want her to join, too, right Ames?"

Amy gave me an awkward smile. "Especially if you work on your healing capabilities. To tell you the truth… healing people is pretty tiring," she said.

"I'll bet," I said.

She shook her head. "You have no idea… I've been doing it so much, everyone just takes it for granted. People come in and treat me like some vending machine. If I have to go home and there's still people lined up, they yell at me. If I heal their disease but don't make them young and beautiful again, they yell at me. If they have to wait more than half an hour, they yell at me. Ugh."

I think Vicky was surprised at that, too.

"So you want me to take a load off..." I started to say.

Amy flopped on to the table, resting her head in her arms while facing me. "I'm sorry. I'm not selling this very well, am I? I know it sounds like I'm just using you, but I want you to know what you'd be getting into. On the other hand, if you're willing to handle brain issues, we could cover each other's bases."

"Oh yeah," I said. I had forgotten that Panacea treated everything _except_ brains. And herself. "I guess I could heal you, too," I joked.

Victoria was suddenly concentrating very hard on biting into her burger.

"I'll do it," I said. It wasn't just the prestige, the knowledge, or the opportunity to cozy up to a great cape. I could tell how Amy was feeling – working as hard as you could and yet everybody seems to be against you? Where have I heard of that before? She needed a friend, someone she could rely on. I knew she was close to her sister, but Victoria wasn't interested in medicine at all; she only picked up and dropped off Amy at the hospital.

Amy actually looked hopeful. "Really? People can be pretty mean at the hospital..."

"I can handle mean people," I said solemnly. "Trust me."

Victoria looked at me curiously. "Sounds like there's a story behind that one."

I wondered if I should tell them. It _was _our first real meeting. We barely knew each other. Maybe it was her aura making me trust her more? Then again, I only knew what the public already knew about New Wave heroes. I tried to clear my head. No, I wouldn't tell them that story in full. "Let's just say that it had to do with my trigger event and leave it at that," I said.

Both of them understood right away and decided to change the subject.

"So, Taylor... I know a guy at school who I could introduce if you're interested..." Victoria started to say.

Without realizing it, Amy and I coordinated our eye-rolls.

* * *

The late lunch I had with Amy and Victoria left me giddy for the rest of the day. Victoria had tried to stretch the day out as long as she possibly could under the excuse of thanking me more, but I was pretty sure she just didn't want to have to go home. Still, it was enjoyable being with them and I got to know them even better. The possibility of joining New Wave? Learning directly under Panacea? I mean, things weren't even close to finalized yet, but I was too excited to sleep. Instead, I was flooded with ideas for more bots, and I wanted to have them built as soon as possible to prove my worth to the team.

I stayed up late trying to manually direct my construction bots into building a newer, even smaller robot. Getting the sub-cell-sized bot was my main goal; if the bot could fit anywhere within the human circulatory system, that massively opened up the possibilities. Chatting with Panacea today had been enlightening. On our way to the hospital, she had taught me so much already. Not that I was going to be a doctor or a nurse any time soon, but it _did_ give me a clear idea of the kinds of jobs my microbots would need to perform if they were to do anything more than first aid.

I was really starting to like the idea of using my bots for medical purposes. Healer capes were valued, and most capes on either side of the fight had an unspoken truce about the thing, like medics during war. It would let me keep tinkering and developing my bots without really exposing me to more danger.

Which meant I had to redesign their toolset. My chat with Panacea and watching the healing process had inspired me and given me a rough idea of what my bots would need to do. Again, I couldn't make them too complicated, especially when I needed them to be at least ten times smaller than my current set of bots. But size and function were almost one and the same for me.

That was my Tinkering ability's specialty. Once I realized what I needed, my mind flooded with creativity, running through dozens of ideas. In order to keep each robot simple, I had chosen to make at least two different types of general-purpose robots. Three at most. Even working in pairs, two different bots basically had three combinations of tools. Three types would have six. And that was just pairs, working in sets of ten to twelve would be huge in versatility. The problem was what the base designs would need to be to offer the greatest versatility and effectiveness.

This was a problem that would take _many_ long days and late nights to figure out.

Suddenly, the bots I had scattered around the neighbourhood alerted me to something that looked suspicious. Someone dressed all in black moving in the shadows in our neighbourhood. Who would be wandering through the neighbourhood at 2:30 in the morning? Weird, but not _that_ dangerous. They were alone. Probably not the ABB or Merchants looking for revenge against me or anything. I continued to work.

It wasn't until they arrived on the block my house sat on that I stopped. Okay, maybe they were after me. I didn't know my neighbours that well, but I was pretty sure none of them were particularly notable or had any gang connections. Maybe it was some creepy stalker? That thread on PHO already had several people banned for trying to speculate about my identity. Maybe someone was creepy enough to take the stalking offline.

I also heard gang members often forcibly recruited new capes. So someone from any one of the gangs that ran the city wasn't out of the question.

I left the basement, ready for a fight. I hadn't used my bots as weapons other than to scratch Lung's eyes, but that wouldn't save my life if they ran at me with a knife. I had as many bots swarm over my body as I could. They'd blocked Shadow Stalker's blunt bolt, so I could only hope they were effective against a knife... maybe a gun.

My bots outside were watching as the figure arrive at my house and stopped to check the house number. Their dark clothing, combined with the time of night, and my bots' poor eyesight meant I had no idea who it was. Just that _someone _was there. I had no doubts that they wanted to break in. They were _probably_ after me, although I knew Dad had made enemies of some gangs for defending the Dockworkers and refusing to work with criminals.

I didn't want to grab the kitchen knife for myself, that would be way too lethal. Wait – there was something in the kitchen I could use. I quickly went for the frying pan. The bots crawling over my body added some strength, helping me lift the fairly heavy frying pan.

The intruder was looking around the house, probably looking for an easy way in. I kept an eye on them with my bots while keeping myself out of sight. I was about to grab the phone to call 9-1-1 when I saw him (I was guessing, given the haircut) nimbly hop up to the second floor. He was looking through the windows, again probably looking for me or dad. What if they _were_ going after Dad?

Well, I could protect Dad a little with my frying pan. And if they were after me, then I could at least provide a decoy. Using the remaining bots inside my house, I had them carry my dirty clothes and stuff them underneath the blankets, arranging them into a vaguely human shape.

I tiptoed upstairs as quickly as I could. The intruder was still working their way around the upper floor with their climbing skills outside. I went back out to the hallway, between dad's bedroom and mine, ready to defend either of us as soon as he broke in. I stayed where no windows were visible. With my bots keeping an eye on the intruder, I could see them and they'd never see me.

And then the bots saw them swing themselves _through_ the window without breaking it.

Oh crap. That was Shadow Stalker. Sophia Fucking Hess came to hurt me _in my home_? My fear flipped to anger.

The fight between her and Tattletale at the bank came rushing back at me. What had Tattletale done? Thrown a lamp at her. The cord. She had gone through the cord and it shocked her, hard.

My desk lamp wasn't close enough to do that, nor did I have any random wires. I had no taser or anything electric with me in the hallway. I did have bots, though they weren't made to electrocute, I could at least have them rub themselves against the carpet and build up a static charge in seconds.

Moving as quickly and quietly as I could, I rushed into my bedroom. She was ready to do something to my blanket double, looking away from the door. Good. She was distracted.

I stepped forward. Maybe she heard me, because she instantly went into shadow state before even turning to see me.

My bots lifted themselves up to touch her foot and released their static charge. She screamed louder than I expected for a little shock.

I swung that frying pan with my best Babe Ruth impression.

* * *

**Author's note: **

Enjoy a slightly early chapter, since I'll be too busy to post at my usual time tomorrow.

I have only just discovered that FFN spazzes out when it comes to converting word documents with lots of formatting. Fixing the formatting on the "forum posts" was more work than I thought it would be, and it somehow managed to affect the formatting in the rest of the chapter as well.


	10. Examination 2

Examination 2

"So tell me again – why did you happen to have a frying pan?" Detective Salle asked as she scribbled on her pad.

"I didn't just 'happen to have' it. I was in the kitchen getting a drink of water when I noticed some movement outside. Someone was climbing up on top of the patio. So I grabbed the first thing I could think of to defend me and my dad and ran upstairs."

"And you heard them come in..."

"Well, technically no, I heard them already walking inside my room. I don't know how she got the window open so fast or so quietly." I was lying my ass off, hoping my acting was realistic. Although I stuck to the facts as much as I could, barring the fact that I knew the intruder was actually Shadow Stalker.

"And that was when you cracked her skull."

Dad stepped in between me and the detective. "This was an intruder in our home. My daughter was scared for her life. I will defend her to the ends of the earth for deciding to hit too hard rather than not hard enough."

"I'm not the judge, Mr. Hebert. I'm just collecting the facts. It was only a single swing?"

"Yes."

"Now, did you know the intruder prior to this incident?"

I had to choose my words carefully. I knew it would be really easy to paint the picture that I deliberately tried to murder her or something. "I didn't know who it was before I removed the mask," I said.

"But you did know her," Salle kept pushing.

I nodded. Best not to say anything about knowing it was Shadow Stalker. "Sophia Hess. She goes to my school. We're in the same grade."

"Have you ever had any significant interactions with her?"

I almost burst out laughing. I was only willing to give her the benefit of the doubt simply because I was sure the school _never_ informed the police about what had been happening to me. "Wait right here," I said. I ran up to my room and grabbed my journal. For the past year, I had been recording each time that the Trio had been bullying me. I'd stopped in January, after being hospitalized from the dumpster incident. Not only had I given up all hope that the authorities would do the right thing, I had been distracted by my newfound powers.

I brought the journal down to the detective. "You can copy it, but I'm keeping the original," I said. I didn't trust them not to suddenly "lose" the journal.

The detective looked at the innocent-looking notebook and started flipping through. Page after page, I saw her look grow more intense, focusing more and more on the words on the page. Occasionally her eyes would flick towards me, and I only gave her a serious glare. _Yes, everything there is true_, I wanted to make sure she knew.

Dad was reading through with the detective as well. I could see his eyes widening as he learned the truth. "Taylor? This has been happening the whole time? I thought they stopped after..."

I shook my head. "They never stopped, Dad. They didn't even slow down after you went to school and talked to the administration. I thought it would change things, but… it didn't. I stopped writing it after the dumpster thing because by then I knew nothing would happen no matter what they did. So let's just say I'm not surprised she's gone from stealing things from my locker to breaking-and-entering my house."

"You should have told me!"

"And what would you have done, Dad? Talked to the staff again? They'd just ignore you again. The same way they ignore _me_ EVERY. SINGLE. TIME."

"We could have sued them! Alan's a lawyer..."

I snorted in disgust. "A Lawyer? Mr. Barnes? Yeah, you _really_ think he'd choose us over his own daughter? Suing the school would mean he would implicate his own daughter in the bullying. And he's just a divorce lawyer anyway."

"If not him, then..."

"Then who? Mr. Barnes _and_ the school are on the same side! He knows all your secrets, dad! They'd probably use Mom's death against us and claim you were mentally unstable, and I was lashing out and making up things for attention or something. We'd go broke in lawyer's fees and they'd win anyways." I crossed my arms and avoided his gaze.

The angry, frustrating silence between us stretched between us for a while until Detective Salle coughed.

"Mr and Miss Hebert, rest assured that I'm going to treat this case with all the importance it deserves. Much of what you listed here can qualify as assault. What is this 'dumpster thing' you mentioned?"

"Back in January those girls stole my mother's flute, broke it, threw the pieces into a dumpster, and pushed me inside of it when I tried to get it back."

"That's assault and theft at minimum. Did you suffer any injuries?"

"They locked the lid. I was trapped in there until I passed out and I was hospitalized."

The detective's eyes bugged out. "And you didn't report this?"

Dad's shoulders sagged. "We couldn't afford the hospital bills. The school agreed to pay for Taylor's recovery if we didn't press charges..."

The detective shook her head. "Hush money is technically legal only when it isn't to cover up a crime. If the school paid this money to prevent you from reporting what is clearly an assault to the police, they've broken the law. If you had informed the police, _we_ would have pressed charges."

"But... they had it in writing... we can't afford to pay the bills."

"First, as I said, an illegal contract is illegal and can easily be nullified in the courts. Second, the state prosecution is the one pressing charges, not you. Victims don't ever have to press charges, or else murder would be the easiest crime to get away with." The detective chuckled to herself at her own dark joke.

"I thought... god, how could I be so stupid?"

"I don't suppose you contacted a legal advisor with you before signing anything?"

"..._Fuck_. It was Alan." That was the first time I heard Dad swear in years.

* * *

After taking a few more statements, the detective was about to leave when the doorbell rang. Dad went to open the door.

"Mr. Hebert? I'm Armsmaster, from the Protectorate." I recognized the voice. My eyes flicked to the front door, where the hero's iconic powered armour was filling the doorway.

"Wait!" I shouted. That took everyone by surprise. "Dad, don't let them inside!"

It probably confused my dad a little, but I was thankful he trusted me. "I'm sorry, Armsmaster. If my daughter is uncomfortable with your presence, I'm going to have to ask you to leave unless you have some kind of warrant."

"May I ask why?"

"No," I said. I stared him down, waiting for him to just get a clue and go away.

He didn't. Dad shook his head and closed the door.

Detective Salle raised her eyebrow. "What... was that about?"

"I just figured out who the intruder was," I lied. I needed someone else to know, someone outside the Protectorate who could put pressure on them so they wouldn't just sweep it under the rug. I just had to come up with a quick excuse and pretend I was smart enough to piece together the clues.

"I thought we already identified her as Sophia Hess," she said slowly, waiting for me to elaborate.

"Yeah, but Armsmaster showing up? Did anyone call the PRT telling them a parahuman was involved?"

The detective checked her notes, then with her colleagues. No, nobody had even suspected that Sophia Hess was a parahuman, so there was no reason for the PRT to investigate the case. Nobody had called them in for aid – it was a simple break-and-enter case, after all.

"So that means Sophia's a parahuman." _Or they suspect me, but I'm going to keep the heat in the other direction as much as I can._

The detective raised her eyebrow. "Well, my guess is she's neither a white supremacist or an Asian..."

"No, they got here quick. Just about as soon as someone entered something in about 'Sophia Hess,' right? She's not a usual villain, she's one of _theirs_. She's one of the Wards – she fits Shadow Stalker. They're here to cover things up," I said. Sure, I had actually figured it out weeks ago, but this was a good way of getting it out into the open.

"You know that revealing a cape's identity is a serious offense, especially if they are Protectorate or Ward-affiliated..." the Detective started. "And if that really is a Ward, then the PRT automatically has jurisdiction."

"Not when they're committed a crime out of costume. Like breaking into my house. And trying to hurt me. And doing all that shit to me in school," I said. I didn't actually know for sure, but I was hoping the law would be sensible in this case. "Don't hand over Sophia until you hear it from them. That Sophia Hess is one of theirs."

The detective sighed and massaged her forehead before flipping to another page in her notepad. "That's fair. And how did you come to the conclusion that Sophia Hess is Shadow Stalker?" The detective was rapidly taking notes again.

"First off, she got inside the house quickly without making a sound. Even if she could pick locks, I didn't even hear a window or door open. I thought that was weird, because I'm pretty sure we keep all the windows locked all winter, we have no reason to open them. But Shadow Stalker can phase straight through the walls, no problem. It also explains how my homework kept getting stolen and how they always managed to get inside my locker. I kept changing the locks and everything, they always got in," I explained.

The detective nodded and started taking notes furiously but said nothing. I waited for her to finish.

"And then there's how she always got away with everything she did. No matter how much I reported her bullying to the school, she got away with it. They never even tried to investigate. And rumour has it at least one of the Wards was attending Winslow. It's Sophia. Everything fits. The PRT has been covering for her. I don't know what they were planning to do here, but I wouldn't be surprised if they tampered with the crime scene and helped Shadow Stalker get away scot-free again."

"That's a pretty serious accusation you're leveling against the Protectorate. Corruption? Possibly even obstruction of justice? Damn, we're normally supposed to hand off any parahuman crimes off to the PRT, but in this case... I might have to contact the FBI."

"Well, I hope _someone_ can get to the bottom of this, because I don't trust the Protectorate to do it," I said firmly.

The detective got up and closed her notebook. "Thank you, Miss Hebert. You've given me quite a case to work on. If you won't let me have that notebook, could you make a photocopy and drop it off at the police station later today? Preferrably after sunrise?"

I nodded. I couldn't let yet another authority figure sweep Sophia's crimes under the rug. I wasn't entirely clear on the law on this – were the police allowed to arrest Protectorate members if they commited a crime? Surely the PRT and Protectorate weren't allowed to just investigate themselves, were they?

Most of the officers left by then, some escorting Sophia to the hospital. Some officers were still upstairs in the hall and my room to collect evidence, so I couldn't go up there yet. I had to try to get a bit of rest on the couch.

Unfortunately, I didn't get much of a chance to rest. Even though I was tired, the excitement and adrenaline had given me a burst of energy. I didn't fall asleep quickly enough before there was another heavy knock on the door.

This time, Armsmaster was back and holding up a warrant. They must have had some kind of fast-track system for this. Or maybe it was something special that Wards got.

"Daniel Hebert and Taylor Hebert. You will come with us for questioning for possible assault involving a parahuman."

I narrowed my eyes at him as I tried to play dumb. "What parahuman?"

"Don't lie. You knew she was a parahuman." He said it with absolute certainty. Had he already talked to the detective? When did he find the time?

"What parahuman?" I repeated. "You tell me which parahuman was involved, or else you're just making things up."

"You don't need to know that," Armsmaster said as he took a step closer towards me.

My dad, to my surprise, stood firm in his way despite being looking like a twig compared to the power armour Armsmaster was wearing. "You're evading the question. Answer it."

"We don't owe you any answers," Armsmaster said, pushing my dad aside like he weighed nothing.

"See how corrupt they are, dad?" I said as Armsmaster forced my arms behind me and handcuffed me.

* * *

The ride to PRT headquarters was stressful, to say the least. I brought as many bots as I could with me without being detected. I didn't know how they could really help, but it was better to have them than not, I thought. I only kept the absolute minimum on my body, but a bunch attached themselves underneath the PRT paddy wagon as it drove through the neighbourhood. They were easily disguised as dust and dirt. They were my cheap bots; not the nice ones I kept in the basement I had been intending to use for medical purposes.

I said nothing to them. I knew they _must_ have been corrupt. Letting Sophia get away with that shit, and then charging _us_ with a crime? Covering their own asses. I wouldn't give an inch.

It didn't make it less scary, though I think the sense of... _righteousness_ helped boost my courage. The blocky, imposing PRT building did have the kind of look of an evil lair. A modern, corporate evil lair, if you ignored the friendly and colourful gift shop at the entrance.

We went in through the back.

I let my bots fall off the truck as it drove through the underground garage and immediately started searching for air vents. It was funny how small air vents actually were; movie heroes would never be able to fit in real air vents. But they suited my bots just fine.

I wouldn't be able to cover the entire building with how few bots I had brought with me. But enough to, say, overhear some conversations would be nice. I wanted to know what they were planning to do to me behind closed doors.

Predictably, they pulled me into an interrogation room, complete with one-way glass and an otherwise spartan interior. I sat on a metal chair that was bolted to the ground in front of a metal table.

They left me in there to stew quietly for a while, presumably to make me more nervous. I calmed myself by navigating my bots through the ventilation system until they were near me. I managed to find dad in the next room, who was fuming as the others interrogated him first.

He wasn't saying anything at all, even as Armsmaster, in his full suit of power armour, grilled him. I'd seen him lose his temper before, and he was loud when that happened. But this was entirely different. I knew my dad was a negotiator for the Dockworkers Union. Not only had he dealt with the government and corporate interests, he also dealt with gangsters threatening the docks territory.

I suppose that was why he held firm. He wasn't angry at someone who failed, he treated them like yet another gang. No point in getting angry at criminals, after all. I was able to draw on his example and not give an inch.

After all, how did the old saying go? _Anything you say can and will be used against you_. Emphasis on the latter. They weren't here to investigate Sophia, they were here to protect her and use my own words against me.

Armsmaster was done with my dad, and he was walking over to my room. I closed my eyes and took a few calming breaths as he stepped inside.

"We have your fingerprints on the frying pan," he said.

I glared at him. No shit. Unless it was suddenly illegal to leave fingerprints on my own property...

"If Sophia Hess dies, it will be treated as a homicide."

That almost irked me enough to shout back at how unreasonable he was, but I reminded myself. They were corrupt. They weren't upholding the law, they were only protecting themselves.

I said nothing.

"If you would like to say anything in your defense, now would be the time."

Why did _I _need to say anything in my defense? I was the victim. Why the hell was he treating me like I was the one who committed a crime?

I continued to glare at him.

"As you may have already guessed, this case is being handled by the PRT because Sophia Hess is a Ward. Assaulting a Ward is automatically upgraded to aggravated assault. You're already in trouble, Miss Hebert. You can make this easier on yourself."

_Bullshit._

"I know you were aware of her parahuman abilities beforehand. How did you find out?"

I looked away. _Maybe breaking into my locker without touching the locks was a clue, huh?_ Hell, I was almost kicking myself for not finding out _sooner_.

"She claims you have parahuman powers. And that you assaulted her using those parahuman powers," he said.

I tried to hide my surprise. Wait, did he know about my nanobots? Had I accidentally left some hair-cutting bots on her after she left school? No, I may have cut more hair than I intended, but I made sure the bots all crawled away before they left the building.

There was that time he had walked into my range with some of my old bots I put in her clothing – but they were an early design. Completely different from what I had now, and I had them destroy themselves. My range encompassed the entire PRT building, I had every single bot accounted for. No functional bots that were stuck in some kind of machine or tube. Did he _know_, or was he just fishing? Did he know I had bots in the building _right now_?

Best to stay quiet.

He slammed his fist on the table, which was nearly enough to dent the thing. I jerked back involuntarily. A power move. Threatening me? Wait, could he actually kill me here? Did the PRT have enough power to cover it up? Fuck.

"Miss Hess had recently expressed concern regarding your alliances and behaviour. Two days later she's unconscious in your home. Did you lure her there? How long have you known her cape identity?"

Me? Lure? Why would I want that bitch anywhere near my house?

A few minutes of him trying to grill me and me giving him the stone wall treatment, Miss Militia walked into the room.

"Armsmaster. The director wants to see you," she said.

"Understood," he said with gruff annoyance. He left the room. I immediately decided that my bots should follow him to his meeting with the director and see what they were plotting.

Miss Militia took the other seat and sat down. "Taylor," she said. "May I call you Taylor?"

Ah. The good cop, bad cop routine. Or, since they were both just trying to cover up their own crimes, it was more like nice bad cop and mean bad cop. I wouldn't fall for their tricks.

I said nothing to her. Instead, I concentrated on the conversation that the director was having with Armsmaster.

"Director Piggot. Ma'am." I had enough bots to hear, but not enough to see into the room. Not that I wanted bots in visual range, in any case. Who knew what crazy sensors that power armour had.

"Armsmaster." Piggot said his name slowly. She sounded like an old, annoyed woman. The kind that could spend hours complaining at the customer service desk until she got what she wanted.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Are you familiar with the phrase, 'I want it yesterday?' As in, 'I want that report on Shadow Stalker, and I want it yesterday?'" Piggot asked. Correction, she sounded like the kind of person who could spend _minutes_at the customer service desk and be complaining to the manager immediately.

"Yes, ma'am. I am. I'll have that report-"

"It wasn't a figure of speech, Armsmaster. I mean it. Literally. Why wasn't a full psychological profile and review of Shadow Stalker's activities and behaviour on my desk _yesterday?_"

"With all due respect, ma'am-"

Piggot ignored Armsmaster. "In fact, why was it not here _last week? Or last month?_ Because something is so amazingly rotten within the Wards program that I have no choice but to start from digging from the top."

Huh. At least she was about as impressed with Armsmaster as I was now. But only because the responsibility fell back on her.

Miss Militia was still questioning me. Same questions, friendlier tone. "Taylor, we're concerned about what happened between you and Sophia." Yep, not falling for friendly routine. If they had any concern at all, they wouldn't have given Sophia a free terrorism pass at school.

I looked at the American flag she was wearing as a mask. She didn't deserve it. I closed my eyes and concentrated on what Armsmaster and the Director were talking about.

"..Shadow Stalker may have been lured."

"Are you familiar with the phrase, 'innocent until proven guilty,' Armsmaster?"

"I'm familiar with the phrase, ma'am."

"Right now the media's going to see the exact opposite. So I don't care what your damn sensor suite or lie detectors are saying. A Ward on probation was involved in a home invasion. And the damn victim is now in the interrogation room. You know what that's going to do to us?"

_Huh. So Sophia had already been on probation. They knew she was a criminal. _As much as I enjoyed watching Armsmaster being grilled by the portly desk jockey of a woman, I focused on her last question. Of course. She was more angry about her image than anything.

"A Ward was in danger. I had to use the Emergency Rapid Authorization Sys-"

"You _abused _the ERAS. There's a difference between a Ward in danger, and a Ward _being_ the danger. And now I've been informed by the BBPD about a case of assault by Sophia Hess from back in _January_. What the hell have you been doing since then? Or before that?"

"Ma'am, I was not informed of-"

"Is it not _your job_ to be informed of the activities of _your Wards_? ESPECIALLY the one that's _on probation_?"

"Yes ma'am, but-"

"So it looks to me that you haven't been doing your job. And if you're not doing your job, I have to start wondering what the hell we're paying you for. Now _get out of my office._"

My bots followed him out.

"Armsmaster to console. Contact all Wards. We're having a general meeting, stat. Attendance is mandatory."

Back in the interrogation room, I could see that Miss Militia had gotten the message too. "Sorry, Taylor. I have to step out for a little bit. Can I get you anything, at least? A cup of water?"

I may have been thirsty, but I wouldn't put it past them to drug the damn water they gave me. Maybe some kind of Tinkertech truth serum or whatever.

I just glared at her and kept my mouth shut as usual.

She sighed and stepped out of the room.

* * *

It took half an hour to get all of the Wards in. The time worked to my advantage, as I could move my bots slowly to the area, not enough for anyone (or anything) to notice. Deeper into the base, I had noticed some kind of tinkertech sensors inside the vents as well, but moving as slow as they did, I was pretty sure I hadn't set off any alarms. The vents were surprisingly clean, but not perfect. There was enough dust for my bots to hide among it.

"What's the emergency? Not another bank robbery, I hope?" Aegis asked. All the other Wards murmured as well.

Armsmaster stepped up up in front of the team. "Four hours ago, police were called to a private residence. The people inside reported a break-in, during which the burglar was subdued by the resident of the premises."

"Can't the, uh, police handle that one?" Clockblocker asked.

"Or if it was a parahuman... Miss Militia or Velocity? They're on night shift, tonight, right?" Kid Win added.

"Sir, should we be starting this meeting without Shadow Stalker?" Vista asked.

"This meeting is _about_ Shadow Stalker," Armsmaster said. "After a case of breaking and entering, Sophia Hess was found unconscious in the bedroom of another teenage girl, with a knife, chloroform and a mask on her. The girl had managed to hit her on the head with a frying pan hard enough to fracture her skull."

"Who was it that-" Gallant began to ask.

"I'm withholding her identity as she is a minor, but Shadow Stalker has expressed... concern regarding this individual before."

There was a short silence, followed by a shorter round of whispering

"Uh, are we talking about the hostage at the bank...?" Gallant asked.

Armsmaster's silence probably confirmed everything for them.

"Even if she was a villain working with the Undersiders... isn't it kind of, uh, a no-no to _go to their home at night_ and get them when they're sleeping?" Clockblocker pointed out.

"Yeah, whywas Shadow Stalker there?" Vista asked. "You didn't send her..."

"I did not send her there. She, like the rest of you, is still grounded until you finish reviewing the engagement and tactics courses. She went against orders," Armsmaster said. "I know she does not like speaking to me. I want to know if she has mentioned anything to you."

All of the Wards were quiet.

"She seemed pretty angry after the bank job," Clockblocker said. "I mean, I didn't even realize she cared about her hair _that_ much."

"She's been more angry after the haircut, but she's always been angry."

"Are we still going with the theory that she's a hair-cutting Shaker?" Clockblocker asked.

"We don't have any conclusive evidence yet," replied Armsmaster.

Holy crap, was that the working theory about my powers? Back in the interrogation room, I almost laughed. I realized I shouldn't do that. Especially if they had cameras and figured out I was reacting to things they were saying in the other part of the building.

"Has she actually committed any crime?" Vista asked.

"Given the situation, she does have a clear case of self-defense, but we may be able to hit her with charges of excessive force. This may match with Shadow Stalker's report that she is a loner and troublemaker. But what I want to know is why Shadow Stalker decided to seek her out on her own, against orders."

"I mean, going solo isn't exactly strange for Stalker. That's basically what she was doing for the first few months that she joined us anyway. She always goes off-route, looking for more action," Aegis said.

"She didn't fit in, but maybe that was the problem," Gallant said. "Maybe if we tried harder to consider her major concerns, she wouldn't have thought that she needed to go solo."

"Her concerns? Why just her?" Vista spat out. "Every time we're out on patrol with her she considers it a chore. Then she does solo patrols afterwards because she thinks we're slowing her down. When she does it, everyone says, 'oh, that's just Shadow Stalker.' When I say I want to take down more criminals, everyone's all like, 'oh no Vista, you can't do that, you'll get hurt!' Why does she keep getting a free pass?"

Gallant tried to make peace. "Look, all I'm saying is that maybe we should have been nicer to her, and she might have warmed up to us."

That was clearly the wrong thing to say. Even through my bots I could feel the tension in the room suddenly rise.

"Oh yeah? _You_ try being nice to someone who calls you stupid and weak every day!" Kid Win shouted. "I'm engineering weapons a thousand years more advanced than that shitty crossbow she uses, and she calls _me_ useless and stupid just because I'm bad with numbers?" His voice was cracking from emotion.

I heard chairs being shoved back, a little bit of shouting, but it was Vista's voice that cut through the loudest. "I _tried_ being nice. You know what she called me? A weak little kid. She _threatened_ me, said that if I slowed her down she'd just kick me out of the way. I've been one of the Wards longer than she has. What the hell does she know?"

Whoa. My bots suddenly changed in distance from each other, and the sound and sight I was getting from them was warped and unintelligible. Vista, a known space-warper. And now I knew she could probably disrupt my bots, or at least confuse me.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Vista. Calm down," Clockblocker said. "Nobody's saying Shadow Stalker wasn't an asshole."

"Yeah? It's just when I said it, nobody listened! You thought I was just a weak little kid like she was! You guys were just as bad as she was. You thought I was complaining just because I was young and whiny! Carlos, you never _fucking listened to me!"_

Huh. Okay, so maybe some of the other wards didn't like Sophia either. That was good to know, but the amount of teenage drama in the room made me even more certain that I had made the right decision not to join them. Even without the bullying, I didn't want to be part of that catty infighting.

Aegis was on the defensive. "I'm sorry Vista, I was doing my best to keep the team together. I really thought we had a few successful missions with her."

"Successful isn't the same thing as good, Carlos," Clockblocker said. "You know, I rarely give a shit about these things but half the time, I was trying my best not to just freeze Sophia on the spot every other day. She's such a glory hog. Every mission, if we failed, it was our fault for not keeping up with her. If we succeeded we were just getting in her way and she could have done it better herself. I only got through the last year by ignoring her, mostly."

"At least you _could_ ignore her," Kid Win muttered. Vista nodded in agreement.

"Was she really that bad to you two?" Aegis asked, looking between the two of them. "I never got that sense from her."

"That's because you're strong," Browbeat said. For a guy that large, I almost forgot he existed. He was definitely the quiet type. "Look, I'm new to this team, and I haven't worked very much with Sophia, but I know that type. They stomp over anyone they think is weaker than them to make themselves feel bigger than they are. The first time I met Shadow Stalker, she looked at me like I was trash. It wasn't until I used my power and beat her in a sparring match that she just… ignored me instead."

"Aegis. Why didn't you report any of this to me?" Armsmaster asked.

"I… I thought I could make it work. You know… be a good leader," he said glumly. His shoulders dropped and he avoided the gaze of the rest of his team. "Chris… you never mentioned that she was bullying you."

"What would have come of it? Nothing I do is ever good enough. Sophia was right. Everything I make isn't good enough, or it gets confiscated, or it's basically useless. I can't figure things out like Armsmaster can. At least it's just my inventions that were useless. I didn't want to be the whiny kid who couldn't keep up with the rest of the team."

"Armsmaster, you should go," Miss Militia said. "If we don't have any actual evidence against the Heberts, we have no reason to keep holding them here."

"I have a duty to defend the Wards –"

"That's the lawyers' job, Armsmaster. What Shadow Stalker needed was guidance, not defense."

"I think with more discussion, we may still understand the reasoning –"

"There's no reason to think Shadow Stalker was acting heroically tonight," Miss Militia said firmly. "And look at them. There's no discussion to be had. Go, apologize to the Heberts, and send them home."

Armsmaster took five minutes to let me and my dad out of the room. He didn't apologize.

* * *

After getting my much-needed rest at home, I needed to know how public the whole thing had been. Had Sophia revealed to the public where I lived? Should I expect villains, or rabid Shadow Stalker fans at my door?

I opened up the PHO forums to look for any sign in the news forums about it. I scrolled around for both popular and new posts in the past few hours. There were a few posts regarding a police incident early in the morning that involved Armsmaster, but there were no real details. It could have been about me, or some other incident in town. They weren't uncommon. There were some dedicated cape-chasers that posted just about every potential incident they witnessed. Thankfully, their dedication also worked against them; most people ignored them because 99% of the time, their sightings were nothing of note. Of the one or two posts that could have pointed in my direction, nobody had replied.

But suddenly, I received a private message. I wasn't expecting that. I hadn't interacted much with the online community. Who would want to message me?

* * *

**You are logged in as: ****Backburner. ****[You have 1 new private message!]**

**From: AllSeeingEye **on 07 Mar 2011:

Good morning from your friendly neighbourhood blonde! Now that you're all better now, want to meet? Remember where we first met? Two blocks west of that intersection. 3pm. Plainclothes?

* * *

Well, that was succinct. I had no doubt that Tattletale was the one who had messaged me. She was a villain. Given how I had started to make inroads with Panacea and Glory Girl, I didn't really want to be associated with a villain.

Then again, Glory Girl and Panacea weren't the leaders of New Wave. In fact, they were probably the youngest. Their parents and aunts ran the team, and I think their cousins were older than they were, either in University or senior year or something. Even if they put in a good word for me, there was no guarantee I would actually be able to join New Wave. It was a family thing, anyway, and I would be the weird outsider butting in.

That would feel even weirder than the Wards.

And as much as I respected and appreciated Panacea... how much did her healing help the day-to-day crime problems of Brockton Bay? People praised her for the Endbringer fights. But I bet half the time she was just healing gunshot wounds from the gang fights. Wouldn't stopping the gang fights in the first place be better? Prevention was better than the cure, and I didn't want to get pigeonholed into being a healer when my power _could_ be used to actually fight crime, once I built up enough bots of the right design.

Not to mention the fact that I would be revealing my normal identity. If I joined New Wave, where would that put dad?

Ugh. The nicest team to me still had been the Undersiders. Villains. But hadn't Tattletale said she needed my help at some point? I didn't exactly want to trust her, but I did sympathize a little. I mean, she needed help, but wasn't willing to come clean with the Protectorate and join the Wards. Given my recent interaction with them, maybe she had a good reason not to trust them. Maybe she was in a bad situation like me? Only one way to find out.

Maybe I shouldn't be associating with villains. Heck, the PRT had been willing to call me a villain at the drop of a hat. But she wasn't _that_ much of a villain, right? A bank robbery with no deaths? And I wasn't discussing a robbery with her or anything. We were just meeting, right?

* * *

**Author's Note**:

I realized I forgot to give a shout-out to _Thaumaturgic Awakening, _the fic that first brought me into the Worm fandom.


	11. Examination 3

Examination 3

When I arrived at the intersection, I didn't even see Tattletale before I felt a hand on my shoulder. I turned to see the blonde teen, sans mask. "Hey, new girl. I'm Lisa."

"Hi. I'm Taylor," I said as I gave her a little wave.

"There's a coffee shop that's got fairly private seating nearby," Lisa said. "We can chat there if you like."

I still didn't quite trust her. Thankfully, I had a decent number of bots simply laying around in the street. I used them to keep watch for anyone she may have been using to ambush me, but I didn't see anyone suspicious. I followed her to a small shop, Bean Addiction. There was plenty of seating; the layout of the floorplan and the odd décor meant that the seats were arranged at random angles with random objects between each table. Hanging plants and artwork drawn directly on the glass blocked any clear sightline from the outside. They were also playing music a little too loud for my tastes if I wanted to relax with a hot drink, but I suppose that was why Lisa picked this place. Harder to overhear.

I got myself a fancy tea, Lisa ordered a sugary espresso. After we placed our orders, Lisa leaned in closer to talk. "So. What's new with you? I suppose it's been a busy few days, hasn't it?"

As friendly as she was being, I wasn't going to give details of my personal life to a villain. "Busy. Sure. If you want my help, I need details."

"Fair. I don't even really want to be a villain. Maybe not even a hero. Too much publicity for me. But like I told you before, I didn't have a choice. What I need to know is how much better your Tinkering has gotten."

"Better. Still improving. I think I should let you know that I'm seriously considering joining New Wave," I told her before she attempted some kind of recruitment pitch.

"I see. As a medical Tinker? Your power's as versatile as I figured. That's good. You've been able to start treating your own wounds _and_ construct armour _and_ do the surveillance all with the same power. And other things you haven't even thought of yet. Very nice."

"You seem to know everything already," I said, a little annoyed at the way she was just blurting it out again. At least the loud music was useful.

Lisa didn't seem to care. "But you're having doubts. You don't want to _just_ be a healer, do you? There are people out there who have hurt you, and being a healer means you're simply going to have to accept the Hippocratic oath and limit yourself. Let everyone else handle actually catching the criminals and bringing justice. But you don't quite trust the others to _actually _bring justice. Does that sound about right?"

My memory of Armsmaster early this morning was still grating on me. And Sophia. Ugh. I didn't think it showed that much on my face, but Lisa looked like she was reading me like a book. I didn't know how to stop her. "You talk a lot," I told her bluntly.

Lisa just laughed. "Yeah, I've heard that one before. Even when I'm not trying to annoy someone into making a mistake. Don't worry, I'm on your side. I want to help you out, make sure you do well in the cape scene."

"And get a bit of a favour in return?"

Lisa laughed. "Just a teensy little favour, sure. So, let's start with the basics. You're a new cape. Do you know about the Unwritten Rules?"

I nodded. "They're basically the Golden Rule applied to superpowers, right?"

"That's a good way of putting it. You just have to realize what it really means when it comes to capes, though. I mean, 'don't kill unless you want to be killed' applied to a lot of gangs and police before powers came about, so that was natural. You just have to realize _how impor__tant_ that is when powers come into play, though. Take Kaiser, for example. He can spawn blades out of nowhere. Instantly slaughter an entire room if he really wanted to. And he can do it while he's wearing nothing but a speedo."

That was not an image I needed in my head.

"If you knew someone with that power, who was willing to kill in the past, what would be the only way to engage him safely? Keep in mind that, unlike a soldier, you can't see him holding a gun or a grenade. He could literally be naked and he could spawn all the blades he wanted. Even if he was handcuffed, tied up, pinned to the ground, he could still do it. What could you possibly do to stop him from killing you?"

The answer was pretty obvious. "Kill him first..." I said.

"Exactly. Powers raise the stakes. Guns are bad enough, but people still have to aim them, and they can usually be seen carrying them, and the ones small enough to be hidden can usually be blocked with bulletproof armor or have limited ammo. You can't do that with powers. So it's really to Kaiser's disadvantage to ever kill anyone – once he does, the only safe way of interacting with him is to kill him before he sees you. Once he kills with his power, it's a gun he can't ever stop pointing at people even if he tries."

"But hasn't Kaiser killed people before?"

Lisa shrugged. "Kaiser tries to be very strict about the people he kills personally. He lays out his own set of rules and follows them to the letter. He announces who he kills and why. That way, other people know not to cross a certain line with him. And he has plenty of followers to lay the blame on whenever things get out of hand. Lung, on the other hand, just relies on the fact that he's too hard to kill and anyone seeking retaliation is just going to die. So, like any rule, if you have enough power backing you up, you get to ignore it."

Didn't I know that well enough.

"So the same thing goes for the Endbringer Truce. Most truces really, but the Endbringer Truce especially. We need everyone we can get to fight Endbringers. Anyone who hampers that effort… well, they might as well be on the side of the Endbringers. Hero or Villain, everyone will want to kill 'em on sight."

Tattletale went on. "The last thing – well, not the last thing, but the last really important thing, is about secret identities. Everyone wants to have a life outside of their powers. Long story short, if you're willing to hit someone when they're sleeping, or their families… you're asking for everyone else to do the same to you. Just like the Golden Rule. Nobody sane wants that level of escalation. New Wave was trying to abolish that rule, but it hasn't worked out like they thought it would."

That was one of my real concerns. Dad was all I had left in the world, and he'd be especially in danger if I joined New Wave. "What about those who aren't so sane?"

Tattletale perked up. "That's something else I wanted to talk about. You want to keep your cape identity and civilian identity as separate as possible. Only close friends should know." She narrowed her eyes at me. "I think it's my duty to inform you about Fleur."

"Fleur?"

"Back in the days when the Empire 88 was rising to fill the void that Marquis's defeat left. New Wave was basically at the height of their popularity. They'd just cleaned up Marquis' gang, and they were pushing on the Empire pretty hard as their next target. One of the Empire goons decided to kill her in her home. Snuck in at night and shot her while she slept."

Erk.

"Publicly, Kaiser executed the guy for it, calling it dishonorable. But rumour has it, and my power too, says he actually rewarded the guy and just executed some other person they were planning to kill anyway. The evidence is long gone though, so nothing we can prove."

That was scary.

"To be fair, they haven't suffered any other losses and nobody's tried to attack New Wave at their homes again," Lisa offered. "But you're going to need a decent security system at your home."

Yeah. Security. Like... more bots, covering the entire neighbourhood. Not just enough deliver a tiny static shock or watch. Enough to actually swarm over a person and hold them down.

Lisa was still watching me. "Confident in your home security? Oh, _that's _why Shadow Stalker's out of commission. Grue's gonna like that."

"What do you mean? What do you know about that?"

"Oh, nothing much. Shadow Stalker had a grudge against Grue because his power trumps her power, and he could beat her up in a fight easily. She was going full lethal against him. And I guess she broke the rules against you, too. Damn, she is not going to last very long with that attitude."

Somehow it was satisfying to confirm that Shadow Stalker was ranked pretty low even in the cape world. Maybe that was why she was such a bully in school. Still, it was worrying that my personal life had been revealed so easily and so quickly. "That's not what I'm talking about. How did you know? It's only been a few hours..."

Lisa shrugged. "One of the things my boss makes me do is hack into the PRT servers. I know what they know. Saw a whole lot of activity this morning. Fast-track warrant, emergency Wards recall, your name showed up in a preliminary report. I put two and two together. Oh, yeah, word of caution: my boss and the Empire have moles everywhere. Including the police and PRT. Watch what you say around them."

I just nodded quietly. "And somehow I can trust you?"

"I hate my boss, remember? If you wanna succeed, you gotta deceive. I swear my boss has no idea I'm here. As for you, have a costume that hides as much of your identity as possible. If you use your power without your mask on, keep it as subtle as possible. Act differently. Talk differently. You know Circus, the one who helped us rob the bank? They're so good at hiding their own gender, even my powers can't figure out what they really are. In-costume, female. Civilian, probably male. I'm not even sure if Circus thinks of themselves as male or female, the body language cues change with their costume."

Huh. Now that was a hell of a power even if it wasn't flashy as spitting flame and knife-throwing. "So, it seems to be you're telling me not to join New Wave."

Lisa smirked. "Did I say that?"

"You're doing a hell of a job scaring me off with that Fleur story. And all your advice is basically the opposite of what New Wave stands for. I can't have a secret identity and keep myself safe if I join them." Though it would be _really cool_ to be working with Panacea and Glory Girl...

"Why not both?" Lisa said. She looked like the cat that caught the canary.

I stared at her, not knowing what she meant.

"Genuine advice here. Being a New Wave healer gives you two major advantages. One, you'll be publicly known as a healer. Healers get a bit of... _extra_ de-facto immunity from just about everything. Nobody wants to die, whether they're heroes or villains. Nobody knows when they'll need to call in a big favour when they're really, really trying to _not die_. Now that you're _also_ going to be on the same team as the best damn healer on the planet, _nobody_ would want to touch you, or your family, and earn a grudge from New Wave. One wrong move and they lose access to both you _and_ Panacea."

"Except the crazies."

"Yeah, except a few crazies. But that's always a problem no matter where you go."

"And the second advantage?" I asked.

"My boss won't be able to recruit you," she said.

"You really hate him, don't you?"

"I'll admit, he's been pushing me to try to recruit you. If he knew even _half_ of what I know about your powers' potential, he'd force me to recruit you now. No question. If I can't convince you to join, he'd send mercenaries and have both you and your dad tied up with a bomb vest until you agreed. No matter what he offers, you do _not_ want to work for him."

"I guess I'm starting to see why you want to quit your job," I said.

"Yeah, I've been trying to half-ass the recruitment jobs as much as I can get away with, but my boss only tolerates so much failure. I push too far and I'll end up with a bullet in my head. But if you legitimately join New Wave _pronto_, it's out of my hands. I can honestly tell him you already have a solid, supportive team that makes you feel safe. Done."

This was not the recruitment pitch I had been expecting.

"So here's my proposal. Your power lets you control those robots remotely, right? You've got some kind of… Master ability on top of your Tinkering."

I nodded again.

"You can join New Wave as a healer... and fight crime too."

"Is there a rule for healers who also fight? Do people still treat them like healers?" I asked.

"That's not what I'm saying. I think you do the crime-fighting remotely. Have a body made entirely out of your robots, controlled from a distance. Make people think it's an entirely different person. It's all about deception, remember? You can fake its gender and height and everything. That'll protect your New Wave identity."

Huh. I didn't think of that. Then again, I never had _that_ many bots on me at once. The suggestion spawned more ideas and designs from my Tinker power. It didn't even take many changes from my current designs, just some additional linkage points... and numbers. Big, big numbers of bots.

But that also meant keeping an _extra_ secret identity, from New Wave? What would happen if they found out?

"Would... would that actually work?" I asked.

"Well, if you really want to play this game, then the key is to just not get caught," Lisa said. "Most people still haven't heard of you. Your PRT files still haven't confirmed that you actually have powers yet. So if you publicly reveal yourself with New Wave, you'll be a confirmed healer/tinker. All you do with that power is work with Panacea and help people. That's your face, that's your identity. You make everyone think you've shown all your cards by joining New Wave."

I could see where she was going with this.

"For real cape duties, crime-fighting, and other stuff, you have another identity. That one is _entirely_ remote-controlled. I'd suggest a tall, masculine body. Make it very hard for anyone to make the connection between that cape and you. It has to be a different person, who appears to have a different power set. Again, keep it even further separated from your civilian persona."

That was a lot to think about.

"Thanks for the advice. Don't take this the wrong way, but what exactly do you think I can do to help you against your boss?" I assumed that would be the favour she needed later. On one hand, it put me on guard again to know she wanted me for my powers. Then again, she was willing to admit it. "Why do you need me specifically?"

Lisa put a finger on her cheek and pretended to think. "Couple reasons. You're not too prejudiced against us like a lot of veteran heroes. You're willing to take risks to do the right thing. You're jaded enough to know that the PRT's idea of a hero isn't really what it's cracked up to be... but the same goes for us villains. Your powers are super-versatile, from espionage to combat to defense to healing, given enough time and practice. Lastly, Coil doesn't have anything on you. Yet."

"Who's Coil?" I asked. "Your boss?"

She pulled out her fancy-looking smartphone and opened up a news article. "Did you hear about this?"

I quickly scrolled through it. A news article about the kidnapping of Dinah Alcott, the Mayor's niece. "What about it?"

"Check the date."

I looked more closely. It was the same day as the bank robbery.

"We were paid to rob the bank, whether we were successful or not. And we got to keep all that we managed to steal. Obviously, our boss didn't want us robbing the bank for the _money_. I swear none of us knew what his actual plans were when we did the bank job."

"Distraction. Kidnapping. Does he want a ransom or something?" I concluded. Her boss was the type of person who kidnapped young children of politicians.

"Definitely not. He's not hurting for money, no way. Ransom demands bring too much attention. My boss likes to lay low. My guess? She has powers and he'll exploit her for all she's worth."

"Exploit." I repeated the distasteful word.

"That's my boss. For him, anything's acceptable. He makes an offer you can't refuse. And if you do refuse..." she held up a finger to her temple mimicking a gun and silently mouthed, 'bang.' "Nobody's heard of him because he doesn't want to be known. He's got dirt on all the other gangs, double agents in all the gangs _and_ the PRT. So when I say I can't afford to trust _anyone_ to get me out from under his thumb, I mean it. That's why I need you. As bad as Brockton Bay is, I don't stumble across a cape like you every day."

"You want me to help you escape from his grasp. You promise not to be a villain any more if you do?"

"I could be making _so much more money_ and living the high life, legally, with my powers. The problem is that villains want my powers as well. This is a life I can't get away from without help."

"And the rest of your team won't help? They're okay with that kind of thing?"

"He's got... different forms of leverage over each of us. It's not always as simple as a gun to the head."

"Okay. And how are you going to keep in contact? I don't have a phone."

Lisa rolled her eyes. "I'll buy you one. What are friends for?"

"Friends?" I was hesitant to use that word for anyone in my life right now.

"Well, it's not like we're teammates. I'm trying to _prevent_ that. And I'm not joining New Wave."

"Yeah, but... _friends?_"

"You seemed like you need a friend. I need a friend. My powers tell me you're having a bit of a rough time. So am I. We should stick together."

I sighed. "A phone's a pretty big purchase, though..."

"Girl, I can get you a phone and pay two years' of service up front. If there's _one_ good thing about Coil, it's that he has plenty of money and is willing to throw it around. He doesn't _just_ threaten people. The carrot _and_ the stick, as they say."

I raised my eyebrow.

"Still not worth joining him. But I'm going to milk him for all he's worth while I can," she reminded me. "Come on, let's go phone shopping."

* * *

I was deliberately skipping school at this point. I knew dad would get mad at me if he found out, but it was pretty pointless to suffer just to keep up appearances. I had the equivalent of an engineering PhD in my head, and all it would do was slow down my development. At least, for another day or two, I could still use the excuse that I was traumatized from the break-in.

So, instead of going to school, I headed out to establish my new workshop. I hadn't forgotten the reason I had gone out that night when I had crossed paths with Lung. That experience made me sure to find a place much further from ABB territory than I originally planned.

Originally I had wanted a whole building to myself, but I revised that plan. There weren't many abandoned, full buildings in the nicer areas of town. The shady parts of town had plenty of space, but... well, gangsters and drugged-up squatters everywhere. I didn't need a large, complex workshop. I worked on the microscopic scale, after all. I only needed room to hold raw materials and test my designs. I ended up finding a place in between Lord's Market and the Boardwalk, which was nice enough. It was a walled-off and abandoned room at the back of some building, covered in dust and cobwebs. Insulation and piping were exposed and the ceiling sloped upwards. It wasn't much more than a cupboard underneath a flight of stairs. Less than half the size of my bedroom, probably lost and forgotten from some kind of renovation - perfect for me. Only a small ventilation hole, accessible by bots, formed the entrance.

I kept an eye (or a few billion) on school whenever I passed within range. Mostly keeping track of my former bullies, watching the Principal's office to know if they called Dad or not. It was pretty amusing how quickly the kids at Winslow turned on each other. Just two weeks ago, I was still resident the punching bag, and Emma was the most beautiful and most popular girl there. Today, Madison still sported a nasty haircut while Emma hid hers with a wig. Emma wasn't nearly as confident without Sophia. Madison was quickly turning into the school loser, and Emma did nothing to back her up. Who would have guessed?

Rumours flew around the school; everyone knew my relation to the trio. The simultaneous disappearance of me and Sophia were not coincidences. Ideas ranged from somewhat realistic, like that I had finally snapped and attacked Sophia (I mean, it wasn't _too _far from the truth), to crazy (that I had murdered Sophia and was in jail, or vice versa), to completely absurd (that Sophia had "teased" me because she had a secret crush and we were now an item. Seriously, what the hell is wrong with you people?) After I heard that last rumour, I decided enough was enough and walked away to focus on my work. If rumours that dumb were floating around, nobody would be getting close to the truth.

* * *

As far as my Tinkering went, I needed to both sense and manipulate things at the sub-cellular level. The current diamond powder I had been using was able to cut and scrape through larger objects well enough, but it only seemed like a clean cut to the human eye. Microscopically, it was a jagged mess. If I were to get them working at a smaller scale, I needed to control how they were shaped.

In short, I needed microscopic diamonds cut precisely. The problem was that, despite its strength, diamond was also extremely brittle. My options were either find an entirely different material to work with, or manufacture the diamond myself and just continuously replace the broken parts.

I ended up choosing the latter. There were just far too many opportunities if I managed to get that technology right, so many problems I could solve in a single swoop.

If I could manufacture my own diamond-edge tools, then I could theoretically be able to have diamond-scale armour. Compared to the steel bots I used, it would be less weight, more strength, and all built from the same source. It was one hell of a useful material. And if I could build diamond at the microscopic scale, maybe I could make large diamonds with more time. Big enough to be worth selling to a jeweller.

On top of that, the base material was cheap. Diamonds may be expensive, but I could get plenty of bulk carbon in the form of charcoal. Or flour. Or gasoline. Or wood. Carbon was everywhere. As long as my bots could correctly extract it, I was set. With enough time, I might even be able to create gemstone quality diamonds for some extra income as a bonus. I wouldn't need to do dangerous things like try to rob the Merchants again. Walking to the hardware store and buying a few briquettes was much safer. Dropping a bag in the alley near the vent entrance to my workshop was simple enough, and I let my bots ferry it inside while I sat two blocks away.

I spent most of my day trying to figure out _how_ to actually convert charcoal to diamond. Making a regular, repeating structure of a single atom type was simple in concept. Extremely difficult in practice. It was too easy to accidentally introduce contaminants, have them bond the wrong way and accidentally make graphite instead, or accidentally burn it and have it float away as carbon dioxide. My power seemed to be vaguely hinting at the possibility, I just needed to tease the design out of my mind.

Hour after hour, I kept redesigning and improving my bots. I incorporated all the ideas I had in the past week; everything from electrostatic energy storage to micro-plasma cutters, diamond lenses and conductors, mass linkage and lattice reinforcement. In a single day, I had managed to advance my designs by five generations, Tinker urges more than satisfied. I finally ended up with one bot design that could build a diamond, albeit slowly. And I mean slowly. Even for an absolutely microscopic blade, a few nanometers in length, it still took about an hour to build. Still, I needed quality over quantity right now. I could solve the quantity problem with… more quantity.

The final design was set. It was even smaller than what I needed for medical purposes, smaller than any human cell, multiple linkage points for plenty of potential arrangements. With my current design finalized, I just needed to build. And build. It was slow to start, but within a week I'd have more than I needed thanks to exponential growth.

I kept my older bots busy by fixing mom's flute inside my bag. I didn't have anything better to do with them; they didn't have the ability to help build nor were they made of the materials I could break down. I mean that it worked, but it wasn't perfect. It played music, but there were microscopic imperfections that I was unsatisfied with. I guess that was the problem with sensing everything through my bots. What would never have bothered me before was now glaringly obvious. The exact alloy of the brass, the weld points, the thickness of the silver plating... things I needed more control over. Sure, the flute may not have been perfect to begin with, but... I guess it was more about what it represented to me.

At minimum, it was good practice. After all, if I couldn't seek out all the imperfections in a simple flute, how would I be able to hack it trying to heal the human body?

I kept building robots until the school day had ended. There still weren't many of my brand-new bot type – enough to fit in my pocket for now – which is what I did, along with a charcoal briquette to work on. I kept enough of my older bots on me to practice some medicine. And now it was time to call Amy and maybe get an interview.

* * *

Amy's life was practically dictated by her mother, Carol. I should have known. She was practically as hard on her kids as she was on criminals. Despite the fact that both of us had agreed to work together, Carol wanted to put me through an interrogation before allowing me to work with her daughter. On the other hand, Sarah Pelham, Carol's sister, was also there. Mrs. Pelham, otherwise known as Lady Photon, was the leader of New Wave and seemed pretty enthusiastic about having a new member.

"I need to know what kind of person you are," Mrs. Dallon said. "You know I can't risk any random cape getting close to Amy."

"She's really nice, Mom!" Vicky shouted from the kitchen.

"Vicky, you're already grounded for an extra week for going out when you weren't supposed to! Don't try to add to it!" she shouted back.

Mrs. Pelham turned to me and ignored the minor family squabble. "So, Taylor. Why are you joining us?"

"Um… well, I always wanted to be a hero, you know? And after I discovered what my power was, I… well, I had a hard time figuring out how to put it to use until I ran into Amy."

"And I thank you for that. But what did you do before you figured out your abilities? Why us and not the Protectorate?" asked Mrs. Dallon.

"Please understand that I don't think you're a villain cape or anything, but I do need to know a little more about you," Mrs. Pelham added.

"...I'm not sure if Amy or Vicky told you yet, but one of the Protectorate's Wards caused my trigger." I tried to hide my scowl, but something must have showed in my body language. Mrs. Dallon looked quite surprised but didn't push any further.

"I see. That's probably a better reason than most. How are you doing in school? We expect our members to be model citizens both as capes and as civilians."

I shrunk bank. "I… haven't been going to school lately."

Mrs. Dallon looked _very_ unimpressed. Mrs. Pelham did as well, though the look she gave me wasn't nearly as severe.

"I've been bullied… a lot. The administration brushes it off every time I report it. Even after my trigger, which sent me to the hospital, nobody was punished. They barely even bothered with an investigation. I can't go back there."

"Wow. Let me guess, Winslow?"

I nodded.

"Yeah, that school sucks. You should come to Arcadia! Mom, can you-?" Vicky asked as she walked into the living room.

"You are in no position to be asking for favours right now, young lady!"

Amy, at least, was looking sympathetic as she sat quietly at the other end of the table.

"So… accountability seems to be the issue. I'm getting a good picture as to why New Wave may be appealing to you. Speaking of which, have you ever used your powers illicitly?"

I hesitated. I knew a question like this was coming. It was part of New Wave's ethos, after all.

"I've… done things that the law probably wouldn't approve of, but I still think I did the right thing. I scouted out Merchant bases and stole from them, messed up their weapon stockpiles when I could. Never stole from anyone but criminals. I just needed some startup funds for my tinkering..."

Mrs. Dallon scowled. "I am a lawyer, you know. Even stealing from criminals is still illegal. I'm sorry, but..."

Mrs. Pelham interrupted her sister. "Carol, everyone makes mistakes, especially when they're young and new. It can be a reasonable argument under bounty laws." Turning to me, she asked, "Now that you have your 'startup money,' do you intend to do it again?"

I shook my head. "No, I'm pretty self-sufficient now. I can get by on my allowance. I actually have ideas, and the ability, to make money legitimately, too."

"Have you ever used your powers against normal humans?" Mrs. Dallon asked.

"Only in my own defense," I said. "The Merchant guards… ABB gang members… the ones who caused my trigger."

"That's pretty justifiable. No permanent damage?"

The hair would grow back eventually, even if it took a few years. I nodded.

"Next – have you ever been in contact or worked with a villain group?"

Oh boy. I wasn't a great liar, I knew that. I could tell her partial truths, though. "Um… I ran into the Undersiders before. To warn them, because I overheard Lung saying he was going to kill them. I didn't know they were a villain group at the time."

Vicky shouted from the kitchen. "What? The same group that robbed the bank?" she shouted.

Amy, who had been sitting silently nearby, narrowed her eyes. "When that girl took you hostage… that wasn't random, was it?"

I shook my head. "Not completely? I mean, we ran into each other before but we still didn't know each other's names. She told me afterwards that she's trying to go straight. She wanted my help, and I don't think she trusts her own teammates with that info. There's someone behind the scenes – the kind that doesn't take no for an answer, and doesn't care about the Unwritten Rules."

Vicky huffed. "She's spinning you a bullshit story. I've run into her before. Don't believe her. She's a Thinker, they know how to get into your head."

"I still think it's something worth looking into," I said. "But it's not something I know how to deal with by myself in any case."

"That's a pretty complex situation. However, crimefighting should be done as a team. Drop your relations with the Undersiders, if you still have any. Any relation you have with them would be harmful to New Wave," Mrs. Pelham said.

"I don't think we should sign her. There's too many liabilities," Mrs. Dallon said to her sister.

"I think everything she's done is easily forgivable. If we refuse to give anyone a chance, we may as well give up on the New Wave movement entirely." Turning to me, Mrs. Pelham said, "You seem like a good person, Taylor, so I'm willing to let you join New Wave, but you're going to have to follow some fairly strict behaviour. Focus on the healing aspects of your power. You can be a great hero, but you have to keep your hands clean."

Mrs. Dallon crossed her arms and huffed. "Amy's still my daughter. And I think..."

"We should ask Amy about that, shouldn't we?" Mrs. Pelham turned to Amy. "So, what do you think?"

Amy looked nervously between her mother and her aunt. She took a deep breath and faced her aunt. "I'd be happy to work with Taylor," she said in a determined tone.

I gave Amy a smile. I wasn't sure if I could fully commit to healing only – I knew I could do a lot of crimefighting. As for Tattletale, maybe she was lying, but I didn't want to take the chance that she was telling the truth and leave her to fend for herself. Too many other people had simply walked away from my own situation before, without care because they weren't involved. I wanted to be _better_ than that.

"Next, in regards to accountability – if you were to join New Wave, you would have to reveal your civilian identity. Civilian and cape are one and the same. And the behaviour we expect in your cape form, we also expect as a civilian. Are you prepared to do that?"

Again, something I had thought about for a long time before this meeting. Unlike the Dallon-Pelham families, Dad didn't have powers. One of the reasons that New Wave had mostly been reduced to a family affair between the Dallons and the Pelhams was that they had multiple capes living under each roof. Anyone looking to hurt one of their "civilian" identities through their families would only run into other capes. Outsiders like me… well, we somehow had to reveal ourselves which would put our families at risk.

"I'd have to spend some time building up defenses around my own home to protect my father before I go public," I said.

Mrs. Dallon nodded. "This is also the reason I want you to focus almost entirely on healing. I know you're capable of more, but healers are very valued among all capes. Crimefighters tend to earn grudges. However, almost nobody would turn down the opportunity to be healed. Even Othala of the Empire Eighty-Eight is safer outside of their territory than other members. People may depend on their services one day."

It was just like what Lisa had said. Good to confirm that people from entirely opposite perspectives both came to the same conclusion.

"Welcome aboard, Taylor," Mrs. Pelham said, shaking my hand. "Before we officially induct you into New Wave, I'll need a signed consent from your father. We still expect you to complete your education, so you will have to study and complete a GED if you're going to be homeschooled. For now, why don't you spend the rest of the day and get to know Amy and Vicky better?"

Mrs. Dallon still looked unimpressed.

"And we'll need your contact information, of course."

I almost reflexively said that I didn't have a phone, but I pulled out the phone Lisa just bought me.

"Oh, and you got a phone, finally!" Victoria said as she whipped out her own. "What's your number? Better have all of us entered in. Never know when duty calls!"

I navigated through the menus clumsily, since I was still unfamiliar with it. Could I really have a New Wave identity while still keeping a crimefighting identity hidden from them? Could I really tread the line?


	12. Examination 4

Examination 4

"I'm sorry, Taylor. I'll have to go through these things quickly because I don't have much time between school and hospital work. If possible, I want to get a better feel for how well you can do with your powers. I can talk to the doctors, and then we'll be doing more of the training at the hospital." Amy was sitting across from me, with huge stacks textbooks in the shelves behind her.

I nodded dumbly, since I really didn't know much about medicine other than basic first aid.

"I think your ability has a wide range of applications, but you don't have any inherent understanding of biology, right? Your powers don't cover that?"

I shook my head. "No, my power is entirely related to constructing and controlling my bots. If I knew what I needed to do, though, it shouldn't be too hard to control them even at the microscopic level."

"So you'll have to learn at basically the normal human rate. A lot of people would simply suggest med school, but with the technology you have, some people wouldn't have the patience to wait another ten to fifteen years," Amy said.

"Yeah, people like me," I said.

"Anyways, I figure if you present your power as some kind of specialty, I can help convince the doctors to take you in as sort of... assistant. You won't ever be fully qualified to heal anyone unsupervised, or officially make a diagnosis, not without actually going to med school. Now, the way I see it, you have two choices."

I tilted my head, wondering what Amy meant.

"If you want to try to do the same general-purpose healing that I do, I can oversee you directly. But... I'm pretty sure you can't heal the way I do. And I'm not sure how good a teacher I'll be," she said.

"And the other?"

"Is to do what I _don't_ do, which is basically brains," she explained. "I think the hospital will see it as more of a benefit, since it won't slow down what I'm doing, and they'll be able to take care of all the patients I can't treat myself."

"I think that makes the most sense," I said. "I'm going to have to specialize because I honestly can't learn _everything_ about the human body so quickly, so I might as well specialize in brain procedures."

Amy nodded. "Okay then, here's a few textbooks to get you started," she said, grabbing a bunch from the shelf behind her. Together, they hit the table with a hefty thunk.

"Uh... thanks? Why do you have all those texts anyway?" I asked. "I thought you understood all of that stuff instinctively?"

"Mostly gifts. Lame gifts," Amy said with a shrug. "Part of some awards package, some I'm a contributing author on, some... I forget. People just expect doctors to have lots of medical texts and stuff. You won't believe the number of medical models and posters I get, too..."

I looked the thirty or so pounds of textbooks in front of me and sighed. I guess this would take a while... I took the most comfortable-looking seat in the Dallons' living room and started reading.

* * *

Amazingly enough, I was able to help Amy and Victoria with some of their English homework while I studied. Neither of them were exactly the essay-writing type. Even though they were both a grade up from me, I guess I read more than either of them. It wasn't like Amy had much time in her life to read novels beyond what was assigned at school, between the school and hospital. Victoria simply wasn't the... settle-down-quietly-with-a-book type.

When my mind started to wander too much, or I found myself reading the same paragraph five times over, I wandered over to help Amy proofread her work. She had enough trouble trying to type with only one hand, and typos were abundant.

Around six, the New Wave parents left for patrol, leaving the three of us behind. Normally Amy would be doing her hospital rounds, but her mother had practically ordered her to catch up on her homework, which I was glad to help with. Victoria would have joined them as well, but she was still grounded for now. As soon as she was done the bare minimum required for her schoolwork, she flew up to her room, tapping away at her phone. Amy and I continued with our homework, but she was getting more sullen. It was easy to understand why Victoria felt grumpy, but Amy seemed tense and distracted, too.

"Something bothering you?" I asked.

"I just... ugh. I feel like this is such a waste of time," she said, sweeping her arm over her pile of notebooks, textbooks, and laptop. "Not that I don't appreciate your help, but... I can already do more than any doctor on Earth, and that's without wasting years of my life going through med school. Why am I wasting my time with this bullshit when I could be out there saving lives?"

"Maybe I'm not the best person to ask," I told her. "I'm planning on dropping out of high school as it is. Seriously considering the GED route now. I get what you mean, though."

"And the rest of my family doesn't let me patrol with them. I mean, I know I can do so much, but they always treat me like I'm so fragile, and I'm never allowed anywhere near the danger..."

I looked pointedly at the cast on her arm. Her eyes followed mine, and she let out an extra-long sigh. "Okay. I get it. I can't heal myself. This is so fucking annoying! It's not like I'm completely helpless! Everyone gets hurt sometimes! And this stupid cast, it's so damn itchy! Ahhhrg!"

"You, uh, want me to scratch your arm for you?" I asked.

Amy pawed at the outside of her cast. "What? How?"

"Bots," I replied simply.

Amy stared at me for a second, as her jaw slowly dropped as she thought about it. "Could you?"

I let a small swarm of bots crawl into the tiny gap between her arm and the cast. It was downright cavernous for my bots. I started giving her light scratches inside the cast, and did a bit of cleaning while I was at it.

"Ohhhh that feels so good," Amy said. "I love you already, Taylor."

"Don't mention it," I said. "If it comes down to it, I could make you some basic body armour too. If you don't mind my bots crawling all over your body. It's saved my life more than once already."

"I don't think I'll be able to take you up on your offer any time soon," she sighed, looking at her arm. "I think Carol would escort me in an armored car and keep me on lockdown if she could."

"Yeah. Just a thought. I know I can do a lot more than just heal, but I'm going to have to restrict myself for safety. It just makes me more restless," I said.

Amy just let out another sigh and went back to her homework. I picked up the anatomy textbook and got to reading again. Another hour passed by before a thought occurred to me.

"Hey, Amy... I don't know about you, but I get antsy if I can't Tinker at least a little every day. Do you want to use your power on me for, uh, educational purposes?"

"I'm not growing you bigger boobs," she said.

"Not that," I said, rolling my eyes.

"Okay, I'm curious. What is it?" she asked.

"I'm reading a lot about the body from the textbook, but I just want to, uh, see the body. From the inside. With my bots. I have a small number of, well, high-quality bots with me right now. Not enough to really do much, but I was thinking I could just let them float around in my bloodstream so I get used to navigating the human body?"

Amy's eyes widened. Hey, at least it was something new to her. I didn't want to know how often she got asked for boob jobs.

"So, I just want you to make sure I don't, uh, accidentally do something stupid and kill myself," I continued.

Amy looked at me funny for a few seconds before answering. "Sure. The worst that could happen is, like, just a heart attack," she said. "Maybe an anaphylactic reaction. Nothing I can't handle. Might be interesting."

"Awesome!" I said. Let's do this."

* * *

Exploring my own body was weird. I didn't do anything complex, just had my bots dive into a shallow vein in my hand and then let them get pumped through the body in the bloodstream. The main problem was that it was dark. It had taken a lot of practice to interpret my bots' "vision" into a coherent image, now vision was useless.

I was mostly navigating my own body through, well, _texture_ would be the best word for it. Different types of cells felt different from each other. Their surfaces had different proteins, they had different shapes, and they, well, moved or wiggled differently.

It was something that was absolutely not explained in any textbook, that was for sure. It made me even more certain that I could really only learn well with hands-on experience, and that formal education would be only a guide at best in this field.

Thankfully, I didn't actually need Amy to rescue me. I didn't accidentally block my own arteries or clog up something important. But there was a lot to navigate, thousands of miles worth of blood vessels in the human body. Sure, I didn't need to actually map out every single capillary, but I did need to know the major "intersections" and where to divert my bots if I wanted to go somewhere specific.

The process was so long, we were interrupted when Brandish and Flashbang got home.

"Hey mom! How was it?" Victoria shouted down from her room.

"Busy," Brandish answered. "I heard the ABB got a new Tinker, and apparently so did the Empire. They were trying to attack her, or get at her workshop before she could get established, so a lot of fighting everywhere. It's going to be a busy week. On the other hand, we helped capture Cricket and Victor."

"What? Awww man, I'm missing so much action!" Victoria whined.

"Vicky, your one-track mind is what got you your grounding. You need to learn some restraint and planning. Don't just think about 'getting some action' or being a glory hound," her mother chastised her. "And Amy. Is your homework done?"

"Fine," she said. "Taylor helped. She's pretty smart."

"Hmph." Mrs. Dallon gave me a look that was hard for me to figure out, but it wasn't exactly disapproval. Not approval. But... slightly less disapproval than before? Whatever it was, it seemed better than Mr. Dallon, who just walked past us and barely acknowledged us before flopping down in an armchair in front of the TV.

* * *

"Thanks for allowing me to practice here, Dr. Simmons," I said as best I could, trying not to get creeped out. Seeing dead people on TV was one thing, seeing dead people with their organs cut placed on separate trays right in front of me was something different entirely.

"Panacea said you might be of great help to the hospital with some training, so I'm glad to help. I'm done with this one and we're about to cremate the body, but if your power can make better use of it before we do, be my guest. Just remember it's all considered biohazardous waste. Clean your Tinkertech before you leave the room." He walked over to the other end of the morgue and began typing up his report.

I stared at the body, controlling my breathing and trying not to get squeamish. The odour of formaldehyde was bad enough; but most of the time these people had not died healthy. The autopsy had revealed multiple diseased organs, one of which was septic. Ugh. I had my textbook with me as I sent bots into the cadaver's brain.

Being able to see things from the inside while referring to the textbook definitely helped a lot. It made learning a whole lot easier. Unlike exploring the inside of my own body with my bots, I could take bigger risks. Especially when my bots were allowed to basically crawl through the brain, breaking through the blood-brain barrier and meninges. I wasn't going to risk giving _myself_ a brain hemorrhage that Panacea couldn't fix, but I could do it on this corpse.

The good thing was that this former patient had many diseases as well, so I could get a better understanding of what those diseases looked like from a bot's-eye-view, as it were. Dr. Simmons was kind enough to explain exactly what was wrong with the patient. Like liver cirrhosis, from his drinking problem. Kidney failure, from long-term high blood pressure. Atherosclerosis, from diet issues. And luckily enough (for me, not him), Alzheimer's. It helped me understand these disease much better, at a level my bots could sense. But it wasn't good enough to cure the diseases, I knew.

Definitely something I needed to redesign my bots for before I began to work on real, live brains. Again, I was getting more Tinkering ideas, getting specifics of how to make them better at their specialty. I needed to optimize my bots before my actual debut. The primary solution was to make them smaller. If I could get them small enough, I could have them squeeze through in between cells with minimal damage, and seal up the damage afterwards. It wouldn't do to fix one type of disease only to have the patient die later of a brain infection.

Nobody would trust me with working with a live brain for a while though, and cadavers simply didn't _work_ the same way as normal brains. Blood flow, for one thing. No doctor would authorize it, and it was one hell of a favour to ask of anyone. Amy wouldn't be able to correct my mistakes because of her limitations.

Really, there was only one person who would be willing to volunteer for this kind of thing, and that was myself. I would need to send bots out to investigate my own brain. My brain was relatively healthy – probably – and I needed a good baseline anyway. It would be hard to learn what a brain _should_ be like studying mostly old, dead people.

Of course I would need to be extremely cautious about it, making absolutely sure I didn't do anything to give myself irreversible brain damage. While my bots could easily fit into even the capillaries, I would need to go through several more revisions to make them more ideal for the work I needed to do in the brain. Obviously my brain was mostly healthy, while the cadavers were... not. I could only guess at what kind of work would be needed at all the cases in between, as described by the textbooks.

Having an actual goal and focus made it extremely obvious to me how much work I needed to do to improve my own power. That realization also gave me a lot of inspiration for more tinkering and design. Despite being so busy, with so much to do... I hadn't felt this good in years. Not since before I started high school at Winslow, at least. I had a _purpose_. I had a _mission_. And it wasn't just "get through the day without being shoved by Sophia."

I wanted to be working alongside Amy as soon as possible, but I hadn't completely given up the idea of being a crime-fighting hero, either. I was wondering if I could use Lisa's suggestion of simply remote-controlling bots in order to stop crime somehow, but I didn't really know the exact requirements. I _did_ know what was required for medical bots – I guess if I wanted to fight crime, I could always just wait until I had so many bots I could just bury a criminal in them.

* * *

It didn't take long for me to settle into a routine. It was fairly simple: a morning run for exercise, bot-construction and studying for several hours, then meet Amy after school. Some days we would practice at her house, but more often we were at the hospital. I was starting to get to know a few doctors, and the hands-on experience they exposed me to was helping a lot. Of course, I would never have gotten that far without a personal introduction from Amy.

Back at home, and whenever I wasn't within range of my "workshop," I continued making non-medical bots from garbage and scraps. During my early morning run, I "dropped off" some of my lower quality bots around the city. The bots themselves didn't move much – I just let them sit there and activate or deactivate when I came in or out of range. Mainly, I just used them to watch my back. Everyone's warnings about independent capes and forced recruitment – whether it be Lisa's boss or Empire 88 – left me a little paranoid. Not unjustified, either - Brandish's warnings of increasing gang activity were true, even if they mostly stayed away from my workshop's area. And there were always muggers to watch out for, in a town like this. I had to keep this up until I formally debuted with New Wave, but Mrs. Dallon wanted me to prove my worth and that I was actually being responsible first.

I took a different jogging route each day, but always ended up at my workshop between the Boardwalk and Lord's market. The proximity to two different shopping areas meant I could buy materials from a large selection of different stores, dropping it off by the ventilation-entrance to the workshop. I came at it from different directions each time, using my bots to make sure nobody was watching when I approached. I didn't stay long, and the areas also meant I had a selection of different places to hang out afterwards – several cafes, part of a shopping mall, and a library were all within range. That way, I could Tinker for a few hours each day without actually looking like I was Tinkering.

For my latest and greatest bots, the ones that were actually suitable in medicine, I actually spent money on decent materials. Being primarily carbon-based now, nearly every source of carbon was useful. Scrap paper, food, and even plants had plenty of carbon; the problem was merely "cleaning" it off and making sure no contaminants got in during the synthesis process. So I had to buy more purified, clean materials to speed up the process, like charcoal, flour, or sugar.

It was still hard for me to make diamond, so production was very slow and cautious, even working with a fairly carbon-rich source like charcoal. For now, every single bot I produced went back into producing more bots.

Most of the time, I studied medical texts for a few hours each day – often at the library, since they had the most comfortable seats and it wasn't unusual to hang out there for hours. I kept a small number of bots on my body at all times – not just as armoured protection, but to practice a bit of medicine on myself. As I sat reading, I practiced having them crawl all over myself, until I was able to tell the difference between human cells and bacteria. I had them clear out the bacteria on my skin once I was confident that I could differentiate the two. I was getting fairly good at it, and while I knew I was probably cleaner than I had ever been, it still didn't beat the feeling of a good shower.

And, of course, studying my own brain. After the first attempt had gone well, the following ones were much less scary. I didn't try anything unusual, I just concentrated on seeing what I could sense with my bots while they were in my head. It was very strange actually consciously sensing my brain concentrating on sensing my brain. The tiny shifts in blood flow, oxygen movement, and electrical patterns were obvious to my microscopic machines.

* * *

As my bot numbers grew, so did my purchases. The first bag of charcoal, about ten pounds, lasted two days of construction. Then I had to buy nearly forty pounds of material over the next two days after that. At least hauling charcoal gave my arms a little bit of a workout. I was definitely getting far more exercise each day than I had ever imagined I would be. I had to buy even _more _charcoal, flour, sugar, and such each day, since my bots were consuming more and more. This was becoming a problem sooner than I expected. I never imagined that my construction speed would be limited by how much stuff I could carry, much less it happening within a week.

Because I had so many bots that I was tiring myself out just hauling materials from the stores, I could afford to slow down a little bit. Not every bot had to be dedicated to making things. With the spares, I had my robots clean the entire workshop out; they were able to chase down almost every scrap of dust, and sealed up leaks, ensuring the place was a true clean-room that could have passed the most rigorous industry standards. All hidden in a back room of some random shop.

Cleaning was a little boring too, though, and after I had cleaned everything there wasn't much left to do and a lot of spare bots. I had some climb up walls, make small butterflies so they could fly (not very well) or worms that could inch along on the ground (not very fast). Eventually, I had enough excess robots to create a doll-sized humanoid body with them. That was when I started to practice remote control, getting them to mimic a human.

Exponential growth was an amazing thing. Pretty soon I would need to figure out how to discreetly order charcoal by the pallet or manufacture high-quality bots in a dirty environment.

With the number of high-quality bots on hand for now, I had more than enough for my debut soon. I'd need to finalize my costume. And my cape name. I'd been so concentrating on building bots and studying biology that I hadn't actually given it much thought.

The costume would almost certainly be made of bots. Anything skintight was immediately out. I could base mine around Panacea, though I didn't want to copy her exactly. She was mostly white, like a white lab coat with a hood over a white dress, with red accents and large, visible red crosses to indicate she was a medic.

I had no sense of fashion or style; I needed some cape advice. And because of New Wave's insistence that I only act as a healer, I never let them know about the maybe-possibly-alternative uses of my bots – or how many I had been making. I may as well design the crime-fighting version cape identity while I was at it, and some advice on buying bulk materials in secret. Only one other person about all of that, and probably could give me that advice. So I guess I would contact my friendly neighbourhood villain, Lisa.

* * *

When she arrived at the library, she tossed another phone at me. It was smaller, simpler, and looked extremely cheap. "Burner," she said. "Forgot to get you one last day. If you're going to hide the fact that you're hanging out with me or doing non-healer stuff, you can't leave too much evidence on your regular phone."

"Ugh. My dad hates cell phones, and now I have two. He doesn't even know about the first one yet. Thanks, but you don't need to keep buying me so much stuff," I said. My mom had died being distracted with a phone call while driving; he'd practically sworn off of them since then. Sure, it may have been somewhat irrational, but emotions weren't known to be logical.

"Consider the first phone an investment. This one? It's cheap. Prepaid and loaded with just enough for a few calls. Cost less than a taxi ride. Don't be afraid to toss it in the trash if you have to get rid of it in a hurry." She waved her hand dismissively.

I nodded and put it in my pocket. I'd play around with it later. It was only a short walk to get to my workshop.

Lisa looked at the wall, then back to me. "Uh... is there a way _in_?" she asked.

I guess I hadn't thought this out well enough. "Give me a minute." The ventilation hole wasn't big enough for a person, but it didn't take much to carve a slightly larger hole, enough to us to crawl through. The damage I did to the wall could be quickly be filled in with my excess bots. I kept the bricks for camouflage; my bots could easily move them back into place later.

Lisa gave me a withering glare. "Really?"

"I'll make a bigger door later. Get in, it's clean," I said. I even had a bunch of bots spread out over the ground, shifting their colour so that she had a red carpet.

"Ha ha. Very funny, Taylor." After she crawled inside, she looked around at the relatively bare, but extremely clean room. I sealed the entrance behind us. "Wow. I like what you've done to the place. I mean, I haven't exactly been invited to many Tinker workshops, but this is way cleaner than any Tinker's workshop has any right to be."

"Uh, thanks?"

"You have no idea. Most tinkers guard their secrets jealously. I'm talking crazy defenses and everything. Some of them even hide their bases inside alternate or pocket dimensions, if their tech can do it. I think that might be why the Empire still hasn't managed to flush out Bakuda yet, despite all the fighting."

"Well, you guys brought me to your lair, and now you've seen mine..."

"I think I still prefer mine. The couch is nice." I fashioned an armchair out of bots for her immediately. "So what do you need? I don't suppose you called just so we could hang out."

"I need fashion advice," I said.

She eyed me up and down. "Yeah, that definitely needs work," she said with a grin. Okay, while I had technically been asking for it, it still hurt a little bit. The Trio had often made fun of my clothing, especially since Emma had been an aspiring model. While Lisa dressed in a much more… provocative style than Emma, she was still clearly wearing more expensive and fashionable clothes than me.

Lisa saw my expression and pulled me into a hug. "Aww, I didn't mean it like that. I was just joking. And I know you didn't ask me for normal fashion advice."

I nodded. "Cape fashion advice," I said. I pulled in about thirty pounds worth of bots which covered my body. Right now they just covered all my clothes in a shapeless blob. I got them to reshape themselves into a cloak similar to Panacea's. "Ok, so I'm joining New Wave and working with Panacea. I'm thinking of going with the name Eunoia, since we decided that I'd mostly be focusing on brain procedures."

Tattletale sat down and nodded. "Good pick with the name. It shows a relation to Panacea but clearly a different power set if anyone bothers to research the meaning behind the name. Nobody will think you're trying to take her place, nor should they expect you to do the same thing she does."

"So, you need something friendly and personable if you're going to be your friendly neighbourhood healer. And since you'll be part of New Wave, there's not much point in covering your face… hm… but I would suggest opaque glasses. Cover one or both eyes. Make it look something scientific and technical."

"Why?" I asked.

"You have a Master power to control your robots, right? Most people will know you're a Tinker, especially if you're in New Wave. People fear Masters. This basically helps you pretend you're controlling your robots through some kind of technology, not through Mastering them."

I nodded. I used my bots to create a thin, simple visor that fitted all the way to my skin. It still left most of my face uncovered, so it wasn't entirely against New Wave's aesthetic. I made it look like a compact version of virtual reality goggles, something stereotypically Tinker.

"As far as the rest of the costume goes… keep going with the sci-fi theme. Play up the tinker-healer aspect. Make it at least something feminine," she said.

"Really?" I asked. I knew my body wasn't that attractive. The trio and their posse had let me know every day. Even though I didn't talk to them any more, a year and a half of constant insults was hard to shake off.

"Just do it. It'll look great," Lisa assured me.

I tightened up the robes a bit, but that was all. I really wasn't confident about showing off my body.

"Still too too much of a fantasy-white-mage vibe. Can you make the front look like one solid piece? Something that looks like injection-molded plastic. Make some fake techno-doohickeys on the side if you have to. Just make it look futuristic."

The bots in front interlocked a little bit tighter and aligned their bodies more uniformly, making the front smooth and continuous, like a technical vest over the robes.

"Better. But bigger boobs."

"What?" I thought I imagined what she said. "I'm not giving myself fake boobs."

"Fine, just make the vest part thicker," she repeated. "You can store the extra robots you need in there anyway. You can just pretend there's tons of electronic gadgets inside. But the important part is to accentuate the womanly hourglass figure."

"Why?" I asked. I wasn't looking to be a model, nor the face of New Wave. Victoria had that covered.

"You're still planning on fighting crime with another alternate identity, right? We need to keep the identities separate. Your healer identity has one theme, your crimefighter will be someone completely different. I already have something in mind, so come on. More vest!"

She had a good point, but it felt weird giving myself a padded bra made of bots. I inflated the chest area a little bit, putting an extra four pounds of robots to fill the space. I decided to bulge the back out as well a little like a small backpack, adding another few pounds of bots back there. Now that I had so much extra weight around my chest, I added more bots to reinforce my backside to help me handle the weight.

She was right, though. I could carry quite a lot of my bots there. Having more was always more useful.

"Now about the arms… Again, fake Tinker Tech if you have to. Something solid, technical, make it look like there's some tools and sensors and controls in there, but smooth and futuristic. How are you actually planning on using your tech, by the way?"

"Either injecting the bots or applying them topically to fix things. How about this?" I made them fit the same design as my visor. The bots on the outside linked to each other rigidly, forming a stiff shell, but inside it was just a soft, nearly-liquid mass that surrounded my arms. At the very edge of it, I made an injector-like protrusion, where I would actually be getting bots into people.

"Eh, no needle. It'll trigger a lot of phobias for some people. Or at least, hide it. Extend the doohickeys to your fingertips, maybe."

I had the bots extend outwards, softened the protrusions to look more like a tube than a needle. At first I considered half-gloves, but then I decided to cover my hands completely – didn't want to pick up my patient's germs.

"Excellent. The dress or robe thing kind of works, if you want to look a little bit like Panacea. But I'd suggest something on the hips. A utility belt. Something to create more of an hourglass figure, like I said before."

I did as she was told. I kept the fairly loose robes covering my legs, and added a "belt" made of bots clumped into a string of pods. They covered my non-existent butt and hips, and helped me carry another five extra pounds of bots. With all the robots making up my costume, I was already at about twenty pounds of robots. I could easily add more or less to them as I needed, and use a few to boost my strength as well if it ever got tiring.

"Awesome. Now we need some red crosses. Backpack, chest, and the bracers on your arm should do it." I shifted my bots' positioning slightly. It was something I had discovered accidentally; I didn't need paint to change their colour any more. Changing the spacing and angle of the diamond-tooled bots caused light to refract and interfere in a certain way. Adjusting it would cause it to change colour – at least, from certain angles. It wasn't enough to form perfect camouflage, but it was versatile enough for aesthetics.

"Perfect. Love the texture, by the way. Very shiny and glimmer-y. Really adds to the futuristic look. What is it?"

"Diamond," I said. "I've been manufacturing diamond tools," I said.

Lisa paused. I could see her brain go into overdrive. "We need to discuss this later. As for the shoes..."

"I'm not doing heels," I told her flatly, making sure there would be no negotiation there. Padded vest, maybe. Ass-enhancing belt? Arguable. Heels? No. I needed my ankles for my morning runs.

"Fine. Wear whatever shoes you like. Can you remember all of this?" she asked.

It was surprisingly easy to remember the arrangement of all the bots on my body, despite having somewhere in the range of trillions, maybe almost a quadrillion bots to manage. I had them shift into regular clothing shapes, then shifted them in seconds back into the costume we just designed. "How's it look?"

"Perfect. And you've got one of the easiest costumes to put on aside from Changers," she said. "Sooo jealous."

"Okay, as for crime-fighting, what are you thinking?" I asked.

"Your crime-fighting cape identity will be male. Very male. I'm talking four hundred pounds of pure muscle, or more. Maybe around seven feet tall. Huge. Nobody in their right mind would _ever_ associate the two of you. Hell, even crazy conspiracy theorists on PHO will have a hard time making the connection."

She did have a point. "I don't have four hundred pounds of robots right now," I said. "I might need help getting that material though." To make that much, I would need to buy nearly a thousand pounds of charcoal. That would be enough to warrant delivery service from the hardware store. The conversion from charcoal to robots wasn't that efficient, maybe about one-third of what I bought ended up becoming actual robot.

"I can help you figure that out later. Do you have enough to make a hollow shell?" Lisa asked. "Just enough to figure out the looks."

"Probably." I collected every bot in the workshop that wasn't busy building more diamonds (that process couldn't be interrupted), including the ones currently making up my Eunoia costume. And the ones Lisa was sitting on. I didn't get to see her fall on her ass though, because she had predicted what I was going to do. Oh well.

I made them climb all over each other until they formed a featureless, grey, seven-foot-tall human statue.

Lisa walked around him. "Broader shoulders. Thicker biceps. Thicker thighs. Thicker everything, really," she said wagging her eyebrows at me.

I sputtered.

Lisa laughed. "Oh, Taylor, you're so much fun. Come on, think bodybuilder, not basketball player."

I got back to work, shaking my head at her. I tried to make the robots look like Arnold Schwarzenegger back in his youthful bodybuilding prime, except bigger in every dimension.

"Awesome. You've got quite a hunk, there. Now let's add armor plating. Your robots don't shoot laser beams or any kind of ranged attack do they?"

I shrugged. "Very short range high-voltage discharge. It's how I make the diamonds. I could also turn them into a bow and arrow to launch them somewhere quickly, I guess, but they'd be out of my control range right afterwards."

"So basically no. Your bots can't quite manage the amperage for a real taser weapon. That's fine. We should go with a medieval theme. Yeah, that's good," she nodded. "Sci-fi healer lady for one, massive medieval knight for the other."

I started shifting the bots to form armour plates, similar to the ones that Gallant and Aegis used. They were pretty basic, I didn't know what else to add. I kept him shiny, like a knight in shining armour.

Lisa shook her head. "No, no, this isn't going to work. The colour scheme is too close to Eunoia's. Go with black. He needs to be intimidating. A dark knight."

"Lisa, I'm not making a villain," I said.

"There are _plenty_ of heroes who use intimidation as a tactic. You don't have to be a villain. But every time you scare people into submission, that's a fight you win without resorting to violence. You'll get a reputation for heroism through your actions. And I said intimidating, not evil."

I started to change the colour, and as I was doing it, Lisa started adding more suggestions. "More ridges and shaper angles here. Oh, and make separate plates here and here. Yeah, give the armour abs. Make them accent the muscles. It ups the intimidation factor, and it's not like there's a real body underneath that you actually have to protect."

It took us half an hour to get the body right. My knight looked _borderline_ evil. As hyper-masculine as the starting point was, the armoured version made it even more so. The shoulders were so broad, he was literally as wide as me and Lisa, standing side-by-side. The pects were huge, and the armour plates exaggerated it. Eight separate plates over the abdomen, because each of his glorious ab muscles deserved its own plate. The gauntlets and boots were thick and heavily reinforced, the looked like they had built-in spiked knuckles. The only reason we hadn't made him bigger was that his head was scraping the ceiling. He was a tank – or he would be, once I had enough bots to actually fill him in. Right now he was just a badass-looking eggshell.

"We need to do something about the face. Just needs a little touch-up. Full face coverage. Raise the neck protection. The neck armour can go up to his cheekbones. As for the helmet, make it long and sharp. I'm thinking backward-sweeping spikes, but a pointy 'snout.' Think of a dragon or a lizard. Powerful, animalistic. Inspires fear at the instinctive level. You don't actually need to see out of it, so go nuts with impractical design. The only thing he needs to be able to do is nod or shake his head to communicate."

"Does he _really_ have to be so… spiky?" I asked.

Lisa stood back and pulled me away from my creation as well. "Okay, picture this. You're a drug dealer, a gangster, hell, even if you're Skidmark or Victor. You see _this_ walking down the street towards you at night. Do you want to fight, or run?" she asked, making a grand gesture with both her hands. I shrugged, conceding her point.

"And the heroes?"

"If they're dumb enough to attack something like _that_, they'll probably die to Hookwolf by next week. You'll have enough time to make a reputation as a rogue hero before most of them are willing to engage. I can help a bit with the PHO wiki entry, if you want."

I guess she had a point. I was the one in control. I didn't _have_ to fight back against the heroes. I could be better than them. I _was_ better than them.

"So, can big boy talk?"

"Kind of?" I said. I knew that I theoretically could use my bots to make sound. Just have them form a membrane and vibrate at the right frequencies to make sound. I knew how my bots moved when I _heard_ sound, so I just had to do the reverse, right? I tried making it say hello.

"mmmmmmmmmhhhhh**hhhhhhhhhhhhhHEEELLLLLLLLLO**." The voice was extremely bassy, and it took me a few seconds to coordinate the bots to make something resembling human speech. It was deeper than any man's voice, probably a full octave lower than should be possible with normal human vocal cords. I also didn't make actual vocal cords with my bots, I just had all the exterior bots vibrate, so it came out louder than I expected. I couldn't make them vibrate at the higher frequencies for normal sound; they were actually rather slow, so they could only make the lower pitches. The sound rumbled through the room and I could feel my bones buzz to the sound.

"Holy crap, Taylor. What was that?" Lisa asked.

"Him talking? I'll need practice to get it better..."

"Better? No, that's awesome. Jeez, he talks like he's made of subwoofers. The voice makes him sound like he just finished crawling straight out of the pits of hell. That's freaky. Make him say 'put down your weapons.'" She looked almost giddy.

I had to think for a little bit to remember how my bots vibrated when I was _listening_ with my bots in order to make them to the exact opposite.

"tttssssssscccccccccs**PUUUUUTT DOOOOOWWWWWWNNNNN YYYYOOOOUUUURRRR WEAAAAPOOOOONNNSSSSS**." Ugh, that was going to take practice. I still had way too much static and random noise at the beginning.

Lisa jumped up with glee. "Now imagine how much criminals will shit their pants when they hear that, then look up and see _that_." A little more quietly, she muttered, "I bet a few of Coil's mercs will freak out."

"Ah." Of course she wanted my dark knight to be so imposing. I had promised her that I'd help get her away from Coil, the villain almost nobody had any information on. But people seemed to agree that he hired professional mercenaries - ex-special forces or ex-PRT types, those who didn't bat an eye even when facing down parahumans.

"Sorry if it looks like I'm using you. Full disclosure, I sort of am. But you have to admit it's good advice. Anything that can scare a professional merc would be enough to convince all but the heaviest hitters in Brockton Bay to turn and run."

"Fenja, Menja, Hookwolf... they might be willing to stand and fight, but I see your point," I said. Fenja and Menja were Kaiser's personal guards, two beautiful women armoured like Valkyries. They could grow to several stories tall with proportionate strength, so a seven-foot bodybuilder was of no difficulty for them. Hookwolf was just plain crazy, a tough strong brawler who loved fighting. Lung didn't even need mentioning.

"Sure, but you don't have to beat _everybody. _And unlike real armour, if anything actually snags on the spikes, you can just let it dissolve and reform, right? None of the impractical disadvantages here."

"Also true," I agreed. I could just... do what I could. As long as I made a difference.

"So we might as well go for all the style points we can manage."

"Fine," I said.

"Now he needs equipment. Knights aren't supposed to be boxers," Lisa said. "What he needs is... a gigantic, hundred-pound broadsword almost as tall as he is."

"My bots can't really act as -" I started to say.

"Style points!" Lisa interrupted. "It doesn't matter if they can actually cut like a steel blade. No, wait… make TWO of them! It'll imply that he's got some kind of Brute rating that lets him wield those crazy things one-handed."

I created two (hollow) swords on his back, at one-tenth the planned weight. I was seriously running out of bots at this point.

"Are we done yet?"

"Make the ridges here, here, and here smoother and shinier. Increases the contrast and draws attention to the right places. He's still missing something though..." Lisa muttered, tapping her cheek while her chin rested on her palm. She bolted up straight with a snap of her fingers. "Cape! He needs a cape. Not many Capes these days actually _wear _capes – man, the early nineties were a real clusterfuck of 'wardrobe malfunctions.' But you can do it without the downsides. It'll make him look even more distinctive."

I had to start dissolving parts of his armour to make it. For now, I made the cape as thin as possible so that I wouldn't have to take away too much from the other parts of his body. I accidentally made it too thin and tore some holes in it when they snagged on the swords. And I still didn't have enough to stretch all the way to the ground.

"Wait, keep it that way," Lisa said. "Makes the cape look battle-worn and old. Adds character. Can I see what a thick cape looks like? Can't have light shining through."

I had to dissolve a significant part of his arm to reinforce the cape, since they weren't really doing anything. I let the bots drift straight backwards via air currents.

"Whoa! Do that again," she said.

"Do what again?" I asked.

"Dissolve a part of him."

I decided to get rid of more of his arms.

Lisa was deep in thought again. "This is his power. His identity. It's perfect. It's a Breaker form, not Tinkertech. He can dissolve like smoke, he can appear from anywhere, disappear any time. Can you keep a cloud of random robots just floating around him? Make people who are looking at him seem like he's… hazy, darker, harder to see? Like a negative aura."

"Sure," I said. My bots couldn't really fly, at least, not individually. I could make them link together to make really thin sheets and flap like microscopic butterflies, which could easily catch on air currents and keep them afloat. I let a bunch of these sheets from the gaps between the hard armour plating. It looked like his body was on fire and smoke was leaking out from underneath.

"It's perfect," Lisa said. "As soon as he gets into a fight, everyone will figure out he's got some kind of dissolving and re-forming ability. So that should be his primary power. Probably counts as Breaker 3 or 4. Brute is secondary, depending on how strong your robots are, and maybe a low Stranger as a third. Don't let anyone think he's a Tinker. He's a Breaker."

"Got it." I would have to spend a few days to make enough robots to complete his form. Four hundred pounds of robots just for the main body, and adding in the armour, broadswords, cape, and aura… I was probably looking at eight hundred to a thousand pounds of bots in total. I was just imagining how it would move.

The "aura" was a bit of an issue. The body would need to constantly "leak" bots to produce the aura, which could be good or bad. Spreading bots around the battlefield was something I had intended to do anyway, but it also meant if he was doing it for too long he would end up an empty shell.

"So, we need a name for Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome. Do you have anything in mind yet? I suggest you keep it simple, since he can't talk much anyway."

I thought about it for a while. Names like Demonlord or Shadow Knight and things like that were the first things to run through my head. While they seemed fitting for the evil-looking armour, I really didn't want a name that sounded too evil, too long, or too cheesy. I suppose something edgy couldn't be avoided for an all-black cape with a hundred feet of sharp edges all over his body. Picking names was hard. I had enough trouble coming up with Eunoia.

"What do you think of when you look at him?" Lisa asked after watching me struggle.

"How many parts of him there are to control," I answered dryly.

"Come on. Be serious."

The dark body, the helmet that completely hid his face, the cloud of shadow surrounding him… well, it certainly made people dread his presence. But things like Dread Lord felt cheesy. His lack of face and the dark helmet made any attempts at trying to identifying him feel like staring into an abyss.

"A...byss…?" I tried.

Lisa crossed her arms. "Yeah. It works pretty well. Goes with the colour scheme, the smoky aura, the way he can just disappear like a ghost. You know what, I'd recommend Abyssal. I think Abyss is already taken somewhere by a villain in Nevada, and another one in Australia."

Eunoia and Abyssal. My two new identities. I had lot of long days of construction ahead of me. Shorter if I could get the materials. "Lisa, any ideas on how I could move large amounts of raw material here without drawing attention? The more I have, the faster I can have him ready." _And the faster I can help you with Coil,_ she could obviously figure out I meant.

"Sewer. Use your bots, break up your purchases, ferry them through the sewers like ants. There's a manhole cover just a few feet out that way," she said. "Move them at night, if you can. Also, I'd suggest you clean out a small section of the sewers near the hospital, since you'll be spending so much time there anyway. You want to set up a few drop off points? I'm willing to buy some supplies for you."

I smacked my head. Of course. Why hadn't I thought of that? Sure, I was only visiting the hospital once every other day for now, but once I was approved to work, I'd be there every day. The low-quality bots I spread on the street weren't good enough to build, but they were good enough for cleaning, ferrying materials, and preparing miniature fabrication rooms in the sewers.

People might object to being injected with bots I manufactured in the sewers. But... I'd clean them thoroughly before I used them! What they didn't know wouldn't hurt them.

I'd still keep this little storehouse though, maybe as a backup workshop or storage. At least, until it got found out. It was the only one big enough to crawl inside if I needed to hide, and I was NOT climbing into the sewers myself. No matter how well my bots could clean the area. Yuck.

"Thanks for the help, Lisa. You're not still doing any major crimes, right? You know I'd have to stop you if I'm doing the hero thing..."

"The boss is having us do little jobs, mostly against the Merchants and ABB. The bank job was... different. I promise, all the plans I make will be with zero casualties if things go right, so don't hurt us too badly? Partial truce?" she asked hopefully.

"As long as you behave, I guess. Nobody gets hurt," I told her.

Lisa's eyes flickered over to Abyssal's looming figure and she nodded eagerly. "So, when's your official debut, anyway?"

"Sunday. Lady Photon talked about some kind of big formal party at the art gallery or something. She's arranging everything, I just have to show up."

Lisa lost her voice for a second as she blinked at me a few times. "Um. Well, then. Best of luck Sunday. I gotta go, promise I'll keep my end of the truce!" she said quickly while waving goodbye. I could only guess what was going through her head when she said that.


	13. Interlude 3: Crystal

Interlude 3: Crystal

Midterms, DONE! The moment her political science exam was over, Crystal flew out the door. Buckling down for the past week and going into hardcore study mode was pure agony. Even doing patrols around campus weren't very satisfactory, since just about everyone else was also buckling down to study as well. Even worse, it had felt like she had merely wasted precious study time, so it wasn't nearly as stress-relieving as she had hoped.

But it was all over! She could head back to Brockton Bay, and she would fly the whole way there. While she couldn't hit the same top speeds as her cousin, it was still certainly faster than being stuck in traffic at rush hour.

She phoned home on the way. "Hi, Mom! I'm flying home, anything interesting?"

"_A lot. Gang war brewing, and we got a new member,"_ Lady Photon answered.

"WHAT? Who? Tell me, tell me!" she shouted into her phone.

"_I'll tell you when there's less wind noise, Crystal!" _ Her mother hung up.

Crystal rarely enjoyed flying at maximum speed, but today she pushed herself to the limit as she rushed home.

* * *

When she got home, she immediately threw her backpack into her room and changed into her costume. The rest of her family was already dressed and ready to go on patrol. "Mom, what did I miss?"

"First things first, Crystal. Have you eaten yet? Can't have you collapsing in the middle of the fight."

Crystal knew her mother was stalling and teasing her. "I'm fine mom, I had afew granola bars on the way. Now what's been happening?"

Her brother sported a smug grin. "What _hasn't_ happened? Amy got caught up in a bank robbery, there's a new trigger joining the team... did you hear about the Cornell bomber? The ABB supposedly recruited her... you've been missing out, Crystal."

"She's a Tinker, so the Empire's decided to go all out and hunt her down before she can make anything. That means more violence on the streets every night, and we need to step up on patrols to match. I think they've been overextending a bit, but they haven't stopped even when they lost Cricket and Victor," her father added.

"Alright, so what's the plan?" Crystal asked.

"We're taking the Trainyards. We're starting from the north and heading down. The Protectorate will be sweeping the southern Docks area moving North. Carol and Mark will be joining us."

"Wait, what about Vicky?"

"She's grounded."

"_Again? _She didn't send anyone to the hospital, did she?" Crystal asked.

"Yeah, she did. Amy," her brother told her.

"_WHAT?"_

"We can chat on the way over. We need to be in position by seven," her mother said. "Who do you want to pair up with, your brother or your dad?"

It was a pretty common setup for their family. When they were younger, they had always paired up with one of their parents, and most often she was paired with her father. The setup had multiple benefits. The older, experienced capes could guide and teach their children. While her powers were more like her mother's (and her brother had more similarity to her father), having both sexes on a team was good from a PR and liability perspective. More than one villain had tried playing the sexual harassment claim after an encounter. Moreover, tactically, it worked out better. She and her mother were both long-range Blasters, while her brother and father had more utility as short-range Brutes. The pairing let them handle a wider variety of situations and cover each other's weaknesses.

This year, Crystal was finally old enough to be allowed to legally patrol on her own. Not that she didn't love her dad, but she never really had the chance to patrol with just her brother when she was younger. And then school had started, and it was too much of a hassle to fly back and forth every every day, so she had taken to just joining her college's campus patrol. "I'll go with Eric tonight," she said quickly. A quick glance at him showed he was of the same mind.

"Grab your radios, and let's go."

* * *

As Laserdream, she liked to hover high above rooftop level, while Shielder preferred to keep lower to the ground. She had to slow her flight speed to match her brother, but she didn't mind. Unlike her cousin, pulling high-g aerial maneuvers wasn't her thing. Her brother was better at defense, interception, and nonlethal takedowns, so he had the most benefit being lower to the ground. She could provide long-range bombardment against anyone too tough for her brother to handle with just his shields.

The Trainyards was an especially tricky location to patrol. While some rail lines were still active, the majority of the areas had been long abandoned and poorly maintained. Like the docks, it was a relic of Brockton Bay's glorious past of massive manufacturing and shipping industries. Now, it was littered with derelict boxcars, abandoned warehouses and factories, many of which had been taken over by everything from drug addicts to weapons smugglers, from all the gangs.

Violence broke out pretty often here. Owing to the lack of permanent residents living nearby, 9-1-1 calls were infrequent, and so was police presence. That made it often-contested territory, though the ABB tended to have control of it more often than the other gangs. Still, things were pretty quiet tonight, especially if there was a supposed gang war going on. They hadn't seen anything suspicious at all for the past half hour, but there were plenty of hiding spots in the trainyards.

Laserdream flew lower to get closer to her brother. "So... about this new girl... what's she like?"

Shielder just shrugged. "You'll have to ask mom. I haven't even met her yet. But apparently Amy likes her. They hang out a lot, though I think that might have to do with her powers."

"Really? That's good. Amy's needed to lighten up for a while."

"Yeah, apparently they met at the bank robbery. She's some kind of medical Tinker."

"Aw, does that mean she won't be patrolling with us? That sucks."

"We'll both get to meet her on Sunday. That's going to be her debut."

"Really? Awesome! I can't wait."

"It's going to be a formal – wait, what's that?" Shielder flew down towards a red pickup truck with a bunch of junk in the bed.

It looked like two Asian men inside, and they were driving slowly and carefully. Almost any kind of vehicle tended to be suspicious in this area, especially after dark.

"Hey! What are you guys doing here?" Shielder shouted at them as he hovered in the air in front of the vehicle, though not low enough to actually block them.

The truck slowed down. The driver rolled down his window. Shielder already had a forcefield covering his entire body, so Laserdream wasn't worried if one of them pulled a gun. His defenses were pretty tough. "What am I doin'? What are YOU doin'? I'm minding my own fucking business. Now fuck off. None of the shit I got's illegal."

He parked the car at the side of the road and lit a cigarette, staring Shielder. It was true though. They hadn't seen them do anything illegal, suspicious or not. And wherever he was going, he was deliberately delaying his arrival just so they couldn't follow him to the destination. Since they weren't actually police, they had no legal power to check their licenses or ID.

They had more area to cover, and they couldn't just play the waiting game.

"Just get a picture of their license plate and let's keep patrolling," Laserdream said. Moving on, she saw the truck still hadn't moved. She deliberately kept flying at high altitude to try to keep the truck in sight. If they were making an illicit delivery, then at the very least she'd delay them.

"_Team 2, Team 2, regroup. Stormtiger and Rune spotted, sector 2-west,_" they heard their father's voice come over the radio.

"On our way!" Laserdream radioed back. They started flying over to meet their parents.

"_Kaiser and the twins spotted. About fifteen to twenty normals as backup. No visible guns but they are wearing long coats. This looks like a full assault by the E88,"_ Brandish's voice crackled over the radio.

"Shit. If they're going all-out, that might mean Purity's here too," Laserdream said. Unfortunately, Purity was the closest match to their family's powers – flight and light beams. In fact, Laserdream was a little irked at how often she was compared to the Nazi, since her own light beams were the strongest in the family, and her shields the weakest. Purity, however, took that to an extreme, with more power and more range.

"I don't see her though. She should be visible for miles," Shielder said. "I'll keep a lookout for you."

The one good thing was that her brother's shields were at least strong enough to block Purity. Few other capes had the range and power to take her down when she was at a full aerial barrage.

The family assembled in the air, where they could see the towering valkyries, Fenja and Menja, striding down the road. They had already grown taller than the boxcars, flanking the other ground-bound Empire capes – Hookwolf and Kaiser. Those four were the heaviest hitters, admittedly. Above and ahead of them were Rune and Stormtiger, flying their way in. Rune was sitting on one of three large chunks of concrete that she was levitating.

"Protectorate's on their way, ETA twenty minutes. We just need to be defensive for now. Laserdream. Do you think you can handle Stormtiger and Rune?"

"Shouldn't be too hard."

"The rest of us will concentrate on corralling the ground forces. Shielder, you're on defense duty for everyone, so we all need to stay in his range."

"Gotcha."

"Everyone stay out of Hookwolf's range, he's a non-starter in this fight for now."

"I'll disable the unpowered troops first," Flashbang said. "That'll take most of the gunners out of commission, though I don't think Kaiser would go lethal this quickly."

"Never underestimate the stupidity of Kaiser's followers," Brandish reminded him. "Make sure we do NOT strike first."

"Everyone ready?" With nodding all around, they moved into well-practiced positions. Shame they were missing Glory Girl, she was a huge deterrent all by herself, but they knew they could handle something like this.

"Kaiser! What are you doing here?" Brandish shouted.

"Brandish, how nice to see you. As you can see, I'm merely going for an evening stroll with my friends."

"Very funny, Kaiser. You've got outstanding warrants. We have every right to bring you in."

"You can try, but you will fail. On the other hand, I heard the ABB has been prowling around here. Are you trying to help them enforce _their _claims on the territory?"

"This territory belongs to neither you nor the ABB. It's city property. Now leave."

"No, I don't think I shall. Come now, you and I both know what's at stake here. The ABB have a Tinker who specializes in _explosives_. Nobody, whether it be the Empire, New Wave, or the Protectorate can afford to have _that_ in our back yards. So I have a proposition."

"You think we would _join_ you? If there's anything to find, we can do it ourselves. Your _help_ is not needed."

Laserdream knew they were both stalling for time. They were outnumbered in cape count alone, and that wasn't even counting the unpowered gangsters following behind. While they could try to capture Kaiser without any legal trouble, it was tactically unsound. Brandish was probably trying to intimidate him into turning around, presumably before the Protectorate arrived for reinforcement.

Kaiser himself was probably also waiting for reinforcements; they had far more capes in reserve, especially the heavy-hitter Purity. That begged the question, where was she _now_?

While the banter between Kaiser and Brandish continued, Laserdream eyed Stormtiger and Rune. They had split up and were trying to sneak to the edge of their vision. She shifted as well, choosing to stick to Rune. She would be a quicker takedown; all her ammunition was what she was already touching, whereas Stormtiger could launch invisible pressure waves and air claws with his power.

All of that went to hell when someone screamed in pain from the back lines of the Empire's forces. Everyone's eyes flicked to that spot, only to see an ashen figure dissolve.

Another scream, followed by gunshots. Then an explosion, right in the middle of the group of gangsters. Bodies and blood went flying.

"Oni Lee!"

The ground was suddenly speared with blades, and the Valkyries grew even larger. Manpower had to leap back to avoid getting sliced, though Kaiser seemed to be giving him ample time to react. Meanwhile, the Valkyries were nearing twenty feet tall at this point, big enough to take a swipe at Eric. But nobody wanted to fight each other just yet.

For a second, nobody could see the teleporting assassin. Laserdream merely saw a quick blur that appeared behind Stormtiger, who reacted without even seeing. He had managed to dodge the assassination attempt, just barely. He grunted in pain and swiped at his back with an arm as the other fell limp. He managed to blast the dark-cloaked figure backwards. As an ashen figure fell, it dissolved before it struck the ground, leaving everyone to figure out where Oni Lee had teleported to again.

Stormtiger started to throw air blades in random directions with his good arm. One managed to strike Lady Photon before Shielder managed to put up a stronger shield to protect her. Rune yelled out and Laserdream suddenly saw a massive chunk of rock flying towards her. She barely dodged out of the way as she shot upwards, but the rock still managed to clip her feet. Her toes and ankles ached fiercely – she wouldn't be standing on the ground until her cousin healed her. Thank goodness for flight powers. She sent out a barrage of lasers in Rune's general direction, but the girl had moved.

Flashbang threw several of his signature energy balls, spread out across the Empire's forces. "_Flash three!_" he signalled through the radio. Everyone quickly turned or covered their eyes as his concussive bombs went off, blinding everyone who hadn't been prepared. Laserdream blindly counted out three bangs before opening her eyes again.

Blinding and concussing the gang members did little to stifle the chaos; in fact, it seemed to get worse. Hookwolf roared, charging ahead with a body coated in metal. It seemed like he had managed to cover his eyes in time. Straight in his path was a dazed Oni Lee.

The demonic cape was still blinded as he attempted to teleport, but he wasn't travelling very far. He was only moving a foot or two at a time, practically only arms' length with each teleport. Still, his erratic teleportation only just managed to save his life against Hookwolf's charge.

He was caught in a swipe by Hookwolf's claws while still blinded. Hookwolf skidded as he tried to change direction, and just managed to grab Oni Lee by the throat. He slammed his opponent into the ground with enough strength that his hand went straight through the Asian villain's throat, but the body merely dissolved into a pile of ash.

Hookwolf promptly exploded as a grenade detonated directly underneath him. The explosion threw him twenty feet into the air and sent shards of metal flying everywhere. All of New Wave had to put up their personal shields, with Shielder taking the brunt of it for everyone else. Hookwolf hit the ground with a thud.

Lady Photon and Manpower both swooped down to Hookwolf and secured him as best they could.

Fenja, Menja, and Kaiser advanced forward cautiously, intent on retrieving their downed teammate. Rune was badly injured and Stormtiger kept a protective stance near her, still nursing his own arm.

"Retreat, Kaiser! You can't win this! Cut your losses and go!" Brandish shouted, forming bright glowing weapons in her hands. Flashbang readied multiple orbs as well.

Laserdream followed her aunt's cue. She spread her arms and made her fingertips glow, ready for another barrage. She was still wary of Oni Lee striking them from behind, but she was pretty sure the ABB was more focused on taking down the Empire than her family.

She heard something behind her, and spun, only to see Oni Lee's knife bounce off her brother's powerful shield. Oni Lee himself was falling, but teleported away. The body hit the ground in another pile of ash, and she couldn't see where he'd gone.

So much for Oni Lee only targeting the Empire.

Kaiser took advantage of the distraction. They all charged forward in one final rush to get their heavy hitter back.

Flashbang hit first, throwing orb after orb of concussive blasts. He increased the power, which would be lethal to normal people but he threw them at the giantesses. This time, it was powerful enough to daze even those two, and the others behind her from the massive shockwave.

Laserdream missed his warning this time, and assumed he had been going to only throw the two orbs. While her eyes were covered and she counted out the two bangs, she didn't realize her uncle had created and thrown two more orbs. She got caught in the flash, only seeing the opponents dazed before being caught herself. Blind, she simply sent a wide barrage in the general direction where she last saw the Empire members while backing up and away.

By the time her sight returned, she realized she must have caused plenty of injuries, as Rune was now completely down for the count as well as dozens of unpowered members. Stormtiger was pulling the girl further back from the fight. Laserdream sent a more precise barrage their way this time, making sure they wouldn't be returning any time soon.

Her father brawling with one of the giantesses, who was stuck in a defensive stance to protect Kaiser, who was just behind her. Random blades continued to spike out of the ground, but her brother was protecting her father from being flanked. Her mother and aunt were tag-teaming the other giantess, and her uncle continued to disable the unpowered gang members with a series of weaker flashbangs.

Hookwolf was still unconscious.

When flashing lights, the sound of sirens, and a distinctive motorcycle approached, Kaiser shouted the command. "Retreat!"

* * *

"Thanks, cuz, you're the best." Laserdream gave Amy a hug as they relaxed back at her cousin's home. Thank goodness none of them had suffered anything critical, but they had gotten their fair share of scratches.

"Crystaaaaaaaallllll! What did I miss?" Crystal felt a haze over her mind as her other cousin shook her by the shoulder. Ah, her pretty, pretty cousin...

"We took in Hookwolf," Crystal told her. "Though if you had been there, we might have been able to capture Stormtiger or Rune, too. It's just not the same without you."

"Vicky, watch your aura!" her mother snapped.

"Sorry," Vicky muttered.

Crystal shook her head. "Yeah, both the twins were there. We managed to hold them off, especially Dad, but another Brute really would have turned the tide." Her eyes went to Amy's arm, which was still in a cast.

"I'm sorrryyyyy," whined Vicky.

"One last push might actually send the Empire packing," Crystal said. "They're down, what, three capes now?"

"Yes. That's what the party's for," her aunt replied. "It's a show of solidarity, that the heroes are turning the tide against the gangs. So I expect all of you to be there, on your best behaviour." She gave a withering look at Vicky. "And I _mean_ it when I say you need to keep that aura under control! It'll be Taylor – I mean, Eunoia's debut. Don't try to put the spotlight on yourself."

"I won't, mom, I promise!"

"So tell me about her!" Crystal said. "Our new member! You think she's going to stay? This is so exciting, we haven't had anyone new since... I can't even remember."

"Weeellllll..."

* * *

**Author's Note: **Happy New Year!

Also it's only a new year and not a new decade yet =P


	14. Exhibition 1

Exhibition 1

Officially joining New Wave was going to be a public event. The problem was that I had put off breaking the news to Dad for so long trying to figure out the best way to do it, I ended up having too little time to do it properly at all. At least I would be the one to tell him first... with a few hours' notice so that he could get dressed properly.

I was debating how to phrase it properly during my morning run on the day of the event. Dad was reading the paper when I got back, having prepared breakfast for both of us already.

"So, have you heard about this? It's all over the news. _Another_ Empire cape captured yesterday. The Mayor's holding a crime-fighter fundraiser party and most of the heroes will be guests of honour there."

"Um... yeah. Dad. Uh, we'll be guests there too," I said.

Dad lowered his paper. "Haha, I must have misheard you in the silliest way. I thought you said we would be going to the Mayor's party."

"Um. We are. Surprise?" I said stiffly.

He put down the paper and stared straight at me. "I thought this was some kind of crime-fighting party. You know, for the police commisioner, the PRT director, and heroic capes."

"It is?"

"I thought you said you weren't going to be going out and playing hero! It's dangerous!"

"I can explain!"

"And I'm sure that you haven't joined the Wards, so what are you doing, going out alone or something?" His voice was starting to rise as I saw his face getting flushed.

"LET ME EXPLAIN!" I shouted back at him.

Dad took a few calming breaths and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Alright. Explain then."

"Okay, first things first. I've been skipping school," I said.

Dad sighed. "That's not a good start. Taylor... you know that education is important," he said.

I nodded. "That's _why_ I'm skipping school, dad. I'm not learning anything there. You know the girl who broke in? She's not the only bully in the school. They all pick on me. Steal my homework, wreck my projects, and none of the teachers care. You saw the notebook. Now, I've been learning more and faster on my own than… well, in _there_."

"But you're still going to need a job eventually. Without even a high school diploma, no matter how smart you are, nobody will even bother with an interv..."

"I can manufacture diamonds," I said, cutting him off.

Dad blinked at me. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I can manufacture diamonds. Pure, flawless, gem-quality diamonds. I could easily get a job as a jeweler and support myself for the rest of my life," I said. "And that's only a small part of what I can do. It's a side project."

"And what's the main project? I thought we agreed that you wouldn't go out and fight the gangs..."

Abyssal was going to remain a complete secret. Only Lisa and I would know the truth about him. I would treat him like a complete stranger if anyone asked. Like Lisa had suggested, that hero would be completely removed from my private life. Eunoia, on the other hand, Dad would learn about, no matter what, I and would rather he hear it from me directly.

"Nope. Healing. Panacea's going to help me get a position in the hospital. She's already introduced me to some doctors and I've been getting both textbook and some practical learning with my bots. Maybe if all this works out I'll earn an honorary medical degree like Panacea did. Or at least a strong recommendation to get into medical school. That's why we've been invited to the party. I'm joining New Wave."

While he was busy staring at me like a gaping fish, I slid the form that Mrs. Dallon had given me across the table. "I need your permission to join New Wave officially and to do volunteer work at Brockton Bay General. They've been showing me around already, but I'm not allowed to touch actual patients yet."

Whatever I had been anticipating, it wasn't tears in his eyes. "I'm so proud of you, Taylor. I'm so glad you picked a safe and respectable way to use your powers. This is so relieving. I'm sorry for assuming the worst. I only wish Annette could see you now."

Mom. I hoped she would be proud. My mind turned to her flute, which had been polished to better-than-new perfection over the last week. I could only hope that I could do as good a job fixing people up as I did with the flute...

* * *

All other plans abandoned, Dad spent the rest of the day making sure everything went right. It had been years since he'd been to a formal gathering. The last one was... Mom's funeral. I don't think he'd touched his suit since then. He was busy trying to make sure it was clean and well-ironed before we went.

Today was my public debut as a hero. New capes in Brockton Bay were practically a dime a dozen; this area had the highest cape-per-capita rate of the entire country. However, a new healer, working under the world-famous Panacea, and possibly a revival of the New Wave movement? That was bound to make the news tomorrow. I didn't want to get plastered across the front page looking like... well, the old Taylor Hebert, pariah of Winslow High.

Especially if we made the debut during some kind of big-wig fundraiser. I didn't really know exactly what was going on, but according to Victoria and Amy, this happened fairly often. The mayor, heads of the police, PRT, a few CEOs or random rich and important people of Brockton Bay all gathered together for some kind of fancy dinner and such. Victoria had been to several of them before, as did the adults of New Wave. Since this was her first major outing after being grounded, she was adamant that she would be going "all out," whatever that meant.

I was glad that she knew what she was doing. I don't think neither me nor dad were comfortable with that type of party.

Apparently dad had been to one before, years ago. When the Dockworkers Union was important. When Brockton Bay's docks were busy, and the shipping industry was strong. That had been a long time ago. Maybe before I was born.

I didn't have many pretty dresses either, but I was able to make something using my bots. I basically started with something similar to what Lisa and I had decided for my Eunoia costume, and then made it more elegant. Less padding, more flowy, but similar colour and texture scheme. It looked fancy and expensive enough. Imagine if anyone found out it had originated from charcoal and sawdust.

Dad called for a taxi to take us down to The Gallery, because, well, we didn't want to show up in his old, rusted-out truck to that kind of event. It would be rather embarrassing. Aside from that, we had no clue what to do, but at least our names _were_ on the guest list, courtesy of Mrs. Pelham.

Even better, Victoria was hanging out near the entrance and spotted us before we were inside. I finally figured out what she meant. She had an amazing, form-fitting white dress, her hair was done up with god knows how much hair spray, her shoes were a fashion designer's impractical dream (she didn't have to walk in them anyway, she was floating an inch off the ground), and her eyelashes and nails and everything looked professionally done. Maybe it was her aura, or her makeup, or maybe I was just imagining it, but I swear she was _sparkling_.

"Dean! Dean! Here she is! This is Taylor!" she said, dragging a boy who was almost, but not quite, as beautiful as she was.

Okay, I had to admit I was a bit jealous, but it wasn't a feeling that hurt me any more. I had long given up on the idea of cute boys being interested in me at all, especially after that time Emma convinced one of the football team members to ask me out as a prank. I'd just given up on the concept of having a boyfriend. And Victoria's was...

"Dean Stansfield. Pleasure to meet you," he said with a genuine smile. "If you're feeling nervous about this, don't worry. I can help you out; I've been to a few of these myself." ...fucking perfect. He took my hand. Was he going to kiss it or something? Wait, no, he just shook it. Okay. I felt so out of place, in a fancy setting like this with handsome boys in expensive suits, that I had no idea what to do. Or say.

"Where'd you get that dress, Taylor? It looks amazing!" Victoria gushed.

"Oh... I, uh, made it," I said.

"Oh my gosh, you _sew_? No wonder it fits so perfectly! Can you make _me_ a dress sometime?"

I realized that would mean having my bots all over Victoria's body. I couldn't avoid receiving the sensory information from my bots. "Um... not really, it's complicated," I said with some embarrassment.

They guided us to the New Wave table, where everyone else was waiting for us. Most of them had been chatting amongst themselves, but their attention all fell on me when I arrived. Dean left Victoria for a few minutes to join his own family while we had our little "team meeting." I got to meet Crystal and Eric Pelham, the cousins of the Dallon sisters. Crystal was in college already, which was why I didn't see her around as often, though apparently she still found time to patrol the city on weekends. Eric was still in high school.

I felt extremely awkward while everyone was heaping praises and congratulations on me before I had actually _done_ anything under my cape name yet. Even weirder was the fact that it was _genuine_. The only time large numbers of people had been congratulating me in the past year was as a setup for some kind of prank. It put me on edge more than I should have been.

Of course, since this party was meant for "networking," whatever that was, we got up and mingled after the whole team had been introduced. I just kind of hung back behind Victoria and let her do all the talking. She was better at it than I was.

Everyone was dressed amazingly though, not just Victoria. It was a much fancier party than anything I had ever been to. There were hors d'oevres laid out at a table with an intricate (maybe cape-made?) ice sculpture and everything. There were several pieces of art up front, separated out from the usual displays in the art gallery. The starting bids gave a rough idea of how much they were worth – some of them had an expected selling price almost as much as our house. The proceeds would go to either the PRT or the local police force though, so it wasn't as if it was a pointless indulgence in excess.

People were milling about, champagne glasses in hand, though the underage ones like myself were relegated to the punch bowl. Not that I minded. I _fit in_. Nobody was staring at me like I didn't belong. Unlike Victoria, I didn't want attention.

"Does this happen often?" I asked.

"Yeah, this event happens annually. Though this year we have more publicity because of how well we've been doing against the Empire," Crystal said. "It seems like we were on the verge of an all-out gang war, but we stepped up our patrols, and so did the Protectorate, and we managed to capture four of the Empire capes, including Hookwolf. The mayor's also up for re-election this year, so he's using all of this for more publicity. It's... bigger than last year's was, for sure."

"Ah."

"But mom thinks it'll also be the perfect place to announce your debut. I mean, the Mayor's here. That's Raphael Bordano, the chief of police. That's Alexander Warner, the director of Brockton General Hospital. I think that one's the head of the Fine Arts Society, they own The Gallery. Forgot their name. Max Anders, CEO of Medhall. He might be interested in your tech if you can make a mass-producible version. And there's obviously a bunch of the Protectorate. Oh, and Vicky's boyfriend, his family is a pretty big deal in the radio and advertising industry, if I remember correctly..." Crystal said, pointing out each one of them around the room for me.

I was feeling somewhat overwhelmed, but at least nobody would give me flak for just sitting in a corner and quietly drinking fruit punch.

"Tay Tay!" Victoria waved at me while dragging her boyfriend over. "Can you get a picture of me with Dean? Isn't he the cutest?" She handed me her phone, and then she leaned down and smushed her cheek against his while smiling at me. Dean rolled his eyes and chuckled.

"Um... cheese?" I snapped the picture.

"So ," he said with a picture-perfect smile. Did he practice that kind of thing in front of the mirror or what? "How are you acclimatizing? It's not so bad, is it?"

I wondered what he meant by "bad," because I was still feeling a little overwhelmed, but he looked like he would be rich enough to think this party wasn't fancy _enough_. I just responded with a weak "mm-hm."

"So, Dean, why aren't your other friends here? I wanted to introduce them to Taylor," Victoria said.

"Ah. Um, apparently they all got into trouble, and had... detention. I'm only here because of my dad."

"Oh. Well, that sucks."

"Tell me about it," Dean said. "But would you like to meet some of the Protectorate? Assault, Battery, or Miss Militia? I've met them personally a few times, I could probably introduce you..."

"No thanks," I said quickly. I wasn't in the mood for meeting Protectorate members. They _still_ hadn't apologized for _arresting me_ after Sophia invaded my home. Apparently they had followed "procedure" and therefore nothing was wrong.

"What? Why? They're good people. Assault's pretty funny," Victoria said.

"I'll tell you about it later," I said. "Just... not a fan of the Protectorate at the moment."

Dean's eyebrows shot up but he said nothing. He just eyed me curiously. "Oh, well, I hope you enjoy the evening at least," he said finally.

There weren't many people our age – really, it was pretty much just New Wave's teenage capes. I didn't exactly want to chat up some CEOs and Presidents and Directors or whatever, so I just went back to the New Wave group. The parents were up and about, doing their mingling thing, but everyone my age was hanging out together.

"What do you like about these events, anyway?" I asked them.

"I don't," Amy said blandly. "But it's a PR thing."

Eric shrugged. "Free food," he said, popping a fancy caper-topped cracker into his mouth.

"It's good if you're planning on going into business and getting a management degree. Networking's important," Crystal said.

I saw my dad talking to Miss Militia. She wasn't eating anything, on account of her mask covering her mouth. And she apparently had a more formal version of her clothing than her usual tank top – it was a businesslike suit-dress, but coloured green like her usual clothes. I shed a few bots from my dress as I walked by, and had them attach to my dad's clothing to eavesdrop on his conversation.

"I get it, Alan's been putting some legal pressure on the school to keep quiet about the bullying. I can see it happening for two or three incidents at most. He's just one lawyer. He's not that famous or anything," Dad was saying. I guess he was right, since Mr. Barnes wasn't at this dinner.

"Like I said, it was just one factor. The other factor was… well, the school administration itself. You know that Winslow High has a high number of gang members, and teenage gang violence, right?" Miss Militia said.

Dad nodded. I nearly rolled my eyes at the rhetorical question, but I was pretending to pay attention to Eric at the same time.

"When we place one of the Wards at the school, we have to let the administration know. Just in case we call them for emergencies, it allows them to skip class without it appearing on their records. Teachers know they need to cover for these students, and so on. Well, the administration noticed that, as soon as there was even a rumour that a Ward was attending Winslow, gang violence went down significantly."

It was what I already expected. That had been the rumour and my suspicion, and now I was hearing it officially from a Protectorate member.

"They wanted to keep her as a deterrent. With my daughter being considered acceptable losses if it meant Shadow Stalker wouldn't get taken away from them." Dad glared at Miss Militia. "Is that Protectorate policy too?"

"Believe me, if we had known, I would have yanked her straight out of there and put her in juvenile detention myself," Miss Militia said forcefully. "Mr. Hebert, I grew up in a lawless land. Where street justice was the only justice, and might made right. When I came to America, I swore to uphold the law, and do things according to law, because it is so much preferable to anarchy. Even if the law isn't perfect."

"And you'll just allow things to fall apart around you until then?" Dad shot back.

"If laws are insufficient, then they can be changed. It can take time, but it is absolutely better than the alternative."

"Hmph." Dad just grunted back at her.

"Again, I apologize. But there was also a third factor," Miss Militia said.

"I'm waiting."

"Shadow Stalker's probation officer considered herself overworked, but chose not to notify her superior officers. Instead, she took the extra pay and assignment, and simply chose to falsify the reports. On top of that, since she worked closely with the school administration, they all agreed to simply… not do any of the paperwork to make their jobs easier."

"You're kidding me..."

"Which is also why I want to promise you that Taylor _will_ see justice eventually, but it will be very slow. We have literally _no_ paper records of any of the abuses Taylor suffered at school, because the administration and our probation officer conspired against her. However, Armsmaster and Dragon herself are both working on this case personally, digging through Sophia's multiple phones and her personal computer for evidence. We're working on warrants for others."

"Promises are easy to make," Dad said. "Cheaper than dirt. Talk to me when you have _results_." He turned and walked back towards our table.

"Hey Taylor."

"Hi dad. Did Miss Militia apologize?" I hadn't caught the beginning of their conversation.

"She did," he said. "Spent more of it making excuses, though. Come on, let's sit down."

The actual dinner was starting soon, and everyone else was making their way back to their respective tables. There were speeches by a couple important people that I didn't particularly care about. This is the part I hated, almost bored to death.

That is, until Mrs. Pelham stood up and all the attention turned to her. "...and I believe Lady Photon has an announcement to make," the mayor was saying.

"Thank you, Roy." Mrs. Pelham stood up and someone handed her a microphone. "I have an announcement to make. I know that Brockton Bay has had more than its share of parahumans on our streets. But today, I have great news. I want to announce that we have a new hero joining our ranks. I'm proud to introduce you to Taylor Hebert, who will be joining New Wave under the cape name 'Eunoia.' She's being mentored by both Panacea and the good doctors of Brockton Bay General Hospital as a healer."

She gestured to me and everyone else around me ushered me up. My eyes darted every which way, feeling completely lost while they pulled me to the front. The entire Gallery full of people were clapping, and their eyes followed the spotlight on me. I stood, but froze like a deer in headlights. I just tried to make sure I didn't let my dress fall apart and leave me standing in my undies in front of everyone.

I was only vaguely aware that Mrs. Pelham was holding the microphone just in front of my mouth.

"Hi..." I tried to wave. I could feel my face getting redder.

I quickly sat back down amidst some muted chuckles.

"She's a little shy," Mrs. Pelham offered.

* * *

I don't know how I survived that, but I almost tried to eat dinner under the table. At least the food was good enough to distract me, and everyone else, from my embarrassing showing on stage. After the dinner, there was more mingling time, as well as the charity auction. Those who weren't as interested in the actual auction started approaching me. I couldn't just keep dodging them, but I decided to hang around near Amy for moral support. Center of attention time, round two.

"Eunoia, how does your power work? Are you a Striker like Panacea?"

I didn't want to reveal all my secrets, of course. "It's Tinkertech. I can do things on the microscopic scale. Amy believes I would be best utilized in various forms of microsurgery and brain studies." I glanced at Amy behind me, and she nodded in support. That felt good, actually.

"Have you gone to medical school?"

I shook my head. "I'm still studying medicine under the guidance of Amy and a few doctors. The way my tech works, I need to learn more about how to adapt my designs to medical needs. There aren't any textbooks or schools for that exactly. It's half engineering and half medicine."

The man seemed not very impressed. I suppose some people would be nervous about being treated by someone who hadn't actually gotten a degree in medicine. Or even nursing. All I was certified in was first aid, officially.

"Don't worry, I'm in full confidence that she will be a great asset to BBGH," came a deep voice from behind me. I turned to see Mr. Warner. I was glad that the hospital director was supportive. Then again, a hospital with TWO healing capes, one of which was Panacea, was bound to be world-famous if it wasn't already. He would certainly take some credit for that.

"I'll be working under the supervision of the doctors of Brockton Bay General for quite a while," I said.

"Will your technology be available for sale for others to use?" someone else asked. I think that was Mr. Anders, the Medhall CEO. Of course he would be interested in medical technology.

I shook my head. Unfortunately, most of the robots I designed still required my Master power to actually direct. Trying to fit in processors and memory and radios would have massively increased their complexity and bulk. "It only seems to work when I use it, like a lot of Tinkertech. I'm hoping that my contributions can still lead to further advancements in the field of medicine for everyone, though."

"I'm curious why you didn't join the Protectorate as a Ward," Dean said. He asked in a calm, gentle tone, but even so, the words felt accusatory.

I knew this question was coming. It was the one I had rehearsed the most, to prevent my emotions from getting the better of me. "I'm having some... personal issues with the Protectorate. I found that New Wave's dedication to accountability to be more agreeable."

"Wait, does that have anything... no, never mind," Dean said. Suddenly, his head whipped to the right. "What's that?"

There was the sound of engines revving, and not from the street. They were coming from the back of the building. The doors to the kitchen suddenly burst open, and a rainbow-patterned stream of hard-light streamed out of it. It was as wide as our dinner table, flat but not sharp. It swept through the room, knocking aside people, tables, and even some of the artwork on the wall. It did a wide loop across the floor and walls and continued through to the upstairs area.

While everyone was still recovering from that rainbow ribbon, four go-karts suddenly shot out of there. They raced on the rainbow track they had just created. The drivers were masked, but not in regular cape costumes. They were video game characters.

"Oh god, it's Uber and Leet," Victoria said, looking more disappointed than anything. "I'll deal with them." Maybe she was hoping her first return to heroing after her grounding would be someone less pathetic. She shot out of her seat towards the lead driver, who was dressed as Mario. He was clearly driving better than his partner, with fancy skids and spins that threw sparks from the tires. Despite being restricted to driving, Uber controlled his go-kart expertly and managed to evade Victoria's initial attack. She slammed into the hard-light path, and L33t ran over her. She was unharmed, but the tires left behind a rainbow paint pattern on her dress.

It wasn't _just_ Uber and L33t, though. Those video-game themed capes were dressed as Mario and Luigi respectively. Easy enough for even a non-gamer like me to recognize. Behind them were two others, one with a mushroom cap/helmet and the other in a Bowser costume. I couldn't see their faces properly, but the Bowser was spewing a familiar black smoke behind him.

The Undersiders. That meant Tattletale – Lisa – was probably here. What the hell? At this point it felt like she was just taking advantage of our so-called friendship. How strange was it that Grue's smoke was starting to become a _familiar_ sight to me?

Then again, as I looked around the room, it seemed like nobody was seriously hurt. Maybe a few bruises so far. Things had better stay that way, or else I'd hit them back right at their hideout.

There wasn't much I could do _right now_. Not like I had enough bots in the area. The Gallery was in the nice part of town, with less litter and garbage, and pretty far from my house. I didn't think of bringing all the bots that could make up Abyssal with me. I only had the bots I was wearing as clothes. I couldn't stop them if I wanted to.

The smoke only rose about shoulder-high on most people, even standing up. It seemed like they _wanted_ to let us see, but we'd trip all over ourselves if we tried to move. However, at least two more heroes followed Glory Girl and sprang into action.

Assault and Battery were quick to jump into the fray, along with most of New Wave. But with the smoke spreading so quickly, and the fast-moving go-karts, it was hard for any of them to target them without risking the other partygoers. They mainly targeted the parts of the rainbow and attempted to guess the timing to intercept them, but Grue and Uber seemed to work well enough together. Grue obscured their vision at the last minute, while Uber's driving skills kept him safe.

Not that they were unarmed, either. Turtle shells sprouted around the karts, and when either of the heroes landed on the pathway, they shot away, bouncing back and forth. Battery was struck with one of them and got splattered with rainbow-coloured paint.

Miss Militia seemed to have the same problem as the rest of the heroes; even if she loaded her guns up with rubber bullets or beanbag rounds, it was far too crowded. The risk of crossfire hitting people or extremely expensive artwork was too high, especially when Grue was deliberately maneuvering the smoke to mess up her aim.

Above the smoke, I could see Uber's go-kart driving _across the walls and ceiling_, where the rainbow pathway led. It made him a target, though. Victoria flew out of her chair and shot straight towards him. Uber then hopped with his cart and drifted sideways, causing Victoria to miss again. She chased him as he descended down the wall, but L33t fired a big, blue, spiky shell from the other side of the room. It smashed straight into Victoria and she and she crashed into a wall, also splattered with rainbow paint.

I winced. The broken wall was bad enough, but if she had been just a foot to the left, she would have smashed straight into a piece of artwork that I was sure was worth five figures minimum. She needed to be more careful if she didn't want to be grounded for life. At least the villains could be blamed for the paint damage.

The rest of New Wave rose to the challenge as well. Eric started putting up shields along the track to block the drivers, but the track itself changed shape to avoid them. I couldn't see where Grue went, he was probably keeping safe and managing the shape of the smoke, while Uber, and L33t seemed to be primarily concentrating on the Protectorate heroes. Regent seemed to focus on making sure the others missed their targets - a quick jerk of the hand from Crystal or Mrs. Pelham was the difference between a downed villain and a downed civilian. It only happened once this fight, but the threat of that alone made everyone hesitant to use any long-ranged powers.

Suddenly, lightning struck everyone in the room except the villains. We shrunk to a quarter our size.

I'm sure more important things were happening around me, but getting hit with some kind of lightning shrink ray wasn't just bewildering. It was inspiring.

My bots had shrunk with me, and very suddenly received an upgrade. They were the size of what would take another five or six generations of refinement to get to this size. I could sense, through my bots, how much more precise they were, how I needed to adapt them for moving at this size. Everything from heat to molecular forces to air currents, things kept working differently at that scale.

Unfortunately, it didn't last long enough for me to do anything useful with my newly-shrunken bots. We all grew back to normal size at the same time. I heard a lot of tables and chairs falling over and dinnerware breaking as everyone expanded back to normal.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you... the Protectorate!" came a voice over the loudspeakers. A voice I had heard recently. Tattletale walked out, not wearing her usual uniform, but a pink princess dress and a small crown, high above the smoke on a rainbow platform. Princess Peach. Of course.

The Protectorate members were partially stuck in their own containment foam and splattered with rainbow paint; I don't know where the villains had managed to grab the sprayers. Maybe from the PRT guards outside the building. Mario and Luigi both had backpacks on and nozzles at the ready.

Most of New Wave had been foamed up as well, but not as badly. All the ones who had been fighting had been sprayed as soon as they grew back to normal size. Victoria was absolutely covered in the stuff, while the others just had enough to stick them to the floor or furniture. Amy and I had been spared.

"What do you want?" Mrs. Pelham shouted at her. She and Crystal had good long-range attacks with their lasers, but the villains all had containment foam sprayers pointed at the guests. Non-lethal, at least, but it would create a very expensive mess.

The carts themselves had now stopped on the upper floor on the balcony overlooking the dining area. Turtle shells circled around them, and the big blue spiky shell hovered above, implying an additional threat if they chose to escalate. It looked like Mrs. Pelham was choosing not to, for the moment.

"To spread the joy of Mario Kart to the masses!" L33t shouted from up above.

"Ignore him," Tattletale said. "We just wanted to welcome Brockton Bay's newest healer!"

It almost sounded genuine. I glared at her.

"We won't let you hurt her," Lady Photon said. The rest of New Wave took positions around me and Amy.

"Hurt her? Us? Never. Can't say the same about the Protectorate, though," she answered back, playing up the dainty pink princess look. "After all, _we_ never broke into her home to try to attack her in her sleep, did we?"

I gaped. Wait, why was she airing out all my dirty laundry out to the public? It... well, it didn't compare to what Emma did. She wasn't making fun of _me_ for it. She was lambasting the Protectorate. The others looked at me for confirmation, but my lack of denial was telling enough. The Protectorate members couldn't argue; their mouths had been foamed.

Even through the muffling of the smoke, I could hear the murmurs of the others at the dinner. It also had the benefit that nobody could Tattletale continued. "Yes, that's right. One of the so-called heroes attacked our dear Taylor in her sleep! It was only due to luck that she wasn't in bed at the time and managed to defend herself. It must have been quite the _traumatic_ experience."

Without realizing, I found myself nodding and agreeing with her. She wasn't lying.

"And when I hear that our Mayor is hosting a fundraiser to hand more money to the dastardly villains that would inflict terror on such noble, young healer? We just couldn't allow that to stand." She laughed. "Clearly, they don't deserve the money, so we've decided to _liberate_ these pieces of art."

Suddenly, the smoke filled the rest of the room, covering everyone's head plunging all of us in darkness and muffling all the sounds. Even sitting back down in my seat, I almost lost balance. I just ducked down and hoped nothing bad would happen.

I heard muffled shouting, the sounds of a few crashes and another lightning bolt. I could feel myself shrink again. There were revving engines, and by the time the smoke cleared, some of the auction items were gone. The tables were a mess, food was everywhere, as was broken glass. By the time we popped back up to regular size, the villains were long gone.

Amy and I did our best to check on all the guests. At least Lisa kept her promise. It didn't look like anyone was hurt particularly badly. And now I had even more questions to deal with.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Sorry about the delayed post. Combination of a ridiculously busy week and being unsatisfied with this chapter and doing multiple revisions.


	15. Exhibition 2

Exhibition 2

There was still another day before I was due to start actually working at the hospital; mostly I was just worried about how I would be received. I wouldn't be working in the morgue any more, nearly alone; I'd actually have a chance to work among the general public.

I wanted to know what I'd be walking into. What did people think of me? The newspapers obviously had the articles covering both the Undersiders and Uber/L33t's crashing of the party, as well as my own debut. But then again, they were written in that standard formal don't-offend-anyone kind of polite style, so I had no real idea about what people actually thought. The internet provided more than one author and people tended not to be afraid to voice their opinions, so naturally I gravitated back to PHO. It didn't take long to find a thread about myself on the forums.

* * *

**Topic: Eunoia: New Healer in Brockton Bay**

**In: Capes ► New Capes **►**USA East**

** ►Tiedieded (Original Poster)  
**Posted on 4 Apr 2011:  
Looks like Brockton Bay has _another _healer. She's working directly under Panacea, maybe a personal friend who triggered? She doesn't have the same powers as Panacea though, and nobody actually saw her do anything at the hospital. Claims to be tinker-tech healing.

**►Grackenator  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
She's being trained by Panacea? Wtf? Does that mean she's New Wave?

**►Tiedieded (Original Poster)  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Yep. New Wave.

**►Grackenator  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Wow. That's pretty surprising. I thought New Wave was basically dead.

**►OuttaControl  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Are we sure this isn't some kind of april fools joke?

**►Fflash  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
April fools was a couple days ago, dude

** ►OuttaControl  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
a late april fools joke?

►**BeGentleImNew **(Veteran poster)  
Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Check it out, New Wave has some official photos and a short bio up on their website

** ►xX_Void_Cowboy_Xx  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Holy crap! I know her!

_Remainder of post has been deleted by the moderator. User has received an infraction for this post._

**_Although New Wave capes reveal their civilian identities to the public, we will maintain our forum policy. Discussion of any cape's civilian life and details are forbidden. Same as it has always been for the other New Wave capes. -Tin_Dad_**

**►Ophelia  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Good old void_cowboy. Keep being the dumb example for everyone to learn from.

** ►Maximus_Rex  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
So, anyone actually get healed by her today? What does she do?

**►Crammmmmmmm5  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
She wasn't healing today, as far as I know. I'm guessing it was just a lot of paperwork and training. She said she was still learning.

** ►_-YoY-_  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
I wouldn't mind getting healed by her.

** ►Aegis_Official **(Verified Cape) (PRT ENE Wards)  
Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Why? Nobody even knows how her tech works, or if she's any good at it.

** ►_-YoY-_  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Have you seen DAT ASS?

_User has received an infraction for this post._

**_\- Please keep in mind that Eunoia is a fifteen year old girl. - Tin_dad_**

**► Gallant_Official** (Verified Cape) (PRT ENE Wards)  
Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Don't be so creepy, Yoy. I've met her. She's new, give her time. I'm sure she'll be a fine hero.

** ► Terribad  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Does anyone know what her problems with the Protectorate are? There have been rumors going around, but no details. Gallant? Aegis? You two know anything about it?

** ►Aegis_Official **(Verified Cape) (PRT ENE Wards)  
Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Only rumors. Nothing I can share.

**► Gallant_Official** (Verified Cape) (PRT ENE Wards)  
Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Same.

** ► trumpet_midget  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Has anyone else noticed that Shadow Stalker hasn't been on patrols lately? Anything to do with that?

**_-Moderator's note: Please stay on-topic. All further discussion about Shadow Stalker will be moved to this thread_._ \- Tin_Dad_**

**_Jump to page: 1, 2, 3_**

* * *

I decided to click the link and see what was going on over there. The thread was a few days old already; I hadn't noticed it before but the discussion was somewhat lengthy.

* * *

**Topic: Shadow Stalker Violated Her Probation (Brockton Bay)  
In: Capes **► **Cape Rumours**► **USA East**

**► wind_me_up (Original poster)  
**Posted on 2 Apr 2011:  
Has anyone seen Shadow Stalker lately? No. You haven't. You know why? She's gone to jail! There was a rumour that she was forced into the Wards because she went too far. She was on thin ice for using lethal crossbow bolts as an independent/rogue. This time, she did worse. Way worse.

A few weeks ago, she was taken into police custody. That's right, regular police, not PRT. Someone called the cops for a break-in. Turns out it was her. I can't name my sources, but you can file a FOIA request for the case file # BB338405_57A. Details are light because it got handed over to the PRT and it involves a cape, but it happened.

Today, a new cape comes out named Eunoia. New Wave, not Protectorate. She's got a beef with the Protectorate. Guess why?

…

…

…

SHADOW STALKER ATTACKED A NEW CAPE AT HER HOME.

That's right. You heard it here first folks. We didn't know about this for more almost a month because the Protectorate has been too busy COVERING UP the fact that one of their own Wards BROKE THE UNWRITTEN RULES and went villain!

Edit: The new cape's a healer, too! Named Eunoia  
_last edited: 4 Apr 2011_

**► Bagrat** (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)  
Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
I only just heard about this, and not even that many details. The PRT is really keeping it under wraps. How did you manage to find out about it?

** ► CapeGrape  
**Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
What? That's fucked up, man. You're making no sense. Why would Shadow Stalker attack a civilian?

**► Baggadornobs  
**Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
Seriously, this is conspiracy theory shit. You go from "nobody's seen shadow stalker" to "SS broke the unwritten rules and PRT is covering for her." That's like flat Earth conspiracy theory levels, man. Maybe she's just taking a vacation.

** ► Maximus_rex  
**Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
Ok, not that I'm subscribing to the theory, but I did happen to be at the hospital last week. Saw someone with a mask getting rushed in there early morning. With PRT escort.

** ► WinRAWR  
**Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
Where do you even get this information? How do we know it's accurate?

** ► wind_me_up** (Original poster)  
Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
Bagrat Can't name my sources man, they trust me with this stuff cuz I don't rat them out.

►**Boo-chan  
**Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
Maximus that could have been anyone. This is Brockton Bay, capes get hurt fighting all the time.

** ► Bagrat** (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)  
Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
So you don't have any verified sources? A FOIA request can't be fulfilled that quickly. There's no way you got the info that way.

** ► crunkite  
**Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
Haha, sounds like Bagrat's getting jealous. Someone knew something before he did?

**► wind_me_up** (Original poster)  
Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
Guess so. I just have better sources than him. Bagrat's just a PRT shill, can't always trust the news from them you know.

**► Bagrat** (Veteran Member) (The Guy in the Know)  
Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
That's not the point. I earned that badge because I know people and I've proven that my sources are trustworthy. Nobody knows where this dude is getting his info from.

** ► Baggadornobs  
**Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
Look, even if what you said is true, your conclusion is way off. Imagine this scenario: Shadow Stalker is chasing a real criminal. They break into this girl's house. They fight, girl gets a trigger event, SS gets knocked out. There, we have a new healer in Brockton Bay, SS was actually defending the girl and not attacking her. Makes way more sense.

** ► wind_me_up** (Original poster)  
Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
Hey, facts are facts. You can always verify afterwards. And baggadornobs, it doesn't explain why she's out of commission for the past week. Whatever the damage, Panacea could have fixed her up. Or why Eunoia's got a beef with the Protectorate.

** ► Engel  
**Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
Hey, any of the ENE Wards want to chime in on this?

** ► Going_GAR  
**Replied on 2 Apr 2011:  
Don't hold your breath. I'm pretty sure it's PRT policy that Wards stay out of these kinds of threads.

_Jump to page: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5_

* * *

Okay, so apparently the whole world knew about Sophia breaking into my house, and had known even before the dinner. I had thought Lisa outed me during my debut, but there had been pages of discussion on it beforehand. But funny thing is, it wasn't Lisa who had started that thread, unless wind_me_up happened to be another one of her alt accounts. Maybe it was just someone who had a grudge against Shadow Stalker?

The thread had exploded with popularity again after the debut with discussion about the attack by the Undersiders and what Tattletale had said. Most people were discussing or referencing another particular thread. It wasn't hard to see why.

* * *

**Topic: The R33L Life Gamer (Uber and L33t livestream)**  
**In: Media **►** Videos **► **Streaming and Subscription**

**_Viewing Page: __1__ ... __81__, 82_**

**►Nordical**  
Replied on 3 Apr 2011:  
New video is up! Looks like they teamed up with the Undersiders for this one

**►|||1llII||1|  
**Replied on 3 Apr 2011:  
Mario Kart! Hell yeah, my favourite series!

►**Tastysis  
**Replied on 3 Apr 2011:  
Undersiders? Why? Do they even game?

**►Uber_the_Gamer **(Verified Cape)**  
** Replied on 3 Apr 2011:  
Regent does. He ain't half bad even when he isn't cheating.

They approached us, they needed something big and flashy, and we had it. What they paid for the job should be enough to fund some major upgrades for our next 3 episodes!

**►Gloof  
**Replied on 3 Apr 2011:  
What was Peach talking about in the vid there?

**►FirstFantasy  
**Replied on 3 Apr 2011:  
Who cares, Uber and L33t just pwned the Protectorate, lol

**►4Jobber  
**Replied on 3 Apr 2011:  
Yeah the lightning shrink actually worked really well! You guys planning on keeping that one? Same with the blue shell.

Taking their own containment foam though, that was brilliant. Take that, fuckin pigs

**►Fflash  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:  
Oh fuck they called the Protectorate villains

**►Venerator  
**Replied on 4 Apr 2011:

Yeah, someone has a thread over on the Rumours forum

* * *

I could only guess why the Undersiders had teamed up for this, but it was likely for Uber and L33t's audience. As neat as the duo's gadgets had been, I suspected they could have found a way to make the theft without them. Calling out the Protectorate was another thing altogether, though making a speech to a small number of rich elites wasn't much of an audience. Having that video on the internet, though, now it made sense.

I took a look at their video, which had over fifty thousand views already. Under the video there was a link to wind_me_up's thread regarding Sophia, to back up Lisa's words. At this point, I guess I should just give up on the idea of having a private life. At least I was with a team that had experience dealing with that.

At the very least, people didn't have much to say about me – almost all the talk was about the Undersiders, the info about Shadow Stalker. I supposed that was what I had to look forward to when I started work.

* * *

I was eager to put what I had been learning and practicing into use. They just had me work in the a room that Panacea used to work in, dedicated for healing capes or non-staff procedures. Panacea had "graduated" long ago to making rounds with the doctors, healing or diagnosing more patients by going to them rather than waiting for patients to be brought to her. I hadn't earned that trust yet. I was overseen by the triage nurses, and be working on the lowest-priority cases. Stuff that wasn't deadly and I had the lowest chances of screwing up, or palliative cases where the patients weren't expecting to survive anyway.

Heck, most of these cases probably shouldn't have even been at ER in the first place, often requiring little more than a few band-aids. Partly I was annoyed that I would mostly be attending stubbed toes and the like, but partly I was also glad that I wouldn't be in over my head. The hospital was understandably cautious about this.

I'd already gone through a few patients like the next one the nurse brought in - a person who had a minor laceration. We didn't ask the details, but I would suspect it had come from a gang fight. Rather common in this town, especially with the ABB escalating against the Empire. While it looked nasty, the blood had already dried and he wasn't in any danger.

"Do I have permission to heal you?" I asked.

"Yeah, yeah, just fix it up, girl."

"Eunoia will need to place Tinkertech on your body to observe for educational purposes. Does she have your permission to do so?" the nurse asked for me.

"Sure, sure, just hurry it up." I couldn't believe this guy. Did Panacea have to deal with this kind of attitude all day? He was lucky that he wasn't waiting for hours for such a minor thing. Triage and all.

The nurse reminded me of what I needed to do. "This is a fairly routine case. Clean out the wound, close up the wound if possible, and apply some gauze to protect and soak up excess fluids. If you're not confident using your Tinkertech for that, we have the standard medical supplies here," she said, pointing at a nearby cart. "Call me if you need me."

It felt a little patronizing, because I knew I could do far more than just swab and stitch. I did the best damn job I could. I was able to take out every single microscopic speck of dirt, more than any swabbing or rinsing could have done. When I closed the wound I lined up blood vessels and skin layers; the guy would probably heal twice as fast and no scar to boot. When I was done, he got up and left without even thanking me.

Ugh.

Amy wasn't too far away, working on the more critical cases, although I think she would be finished with the ER soon and would probably head upstairs in the next few minutes. I could already see why she had become so disaffected.

The next few patients were more appreciative. Although one of the patients was a little _too_ appreciative.

"Aww yiss, you're the new babe right?"

"My name's Eunoia; I'll be your healer today," I said, trying to ignore the looks he was giving me. His smell provided more than sufficient distraction. I think the nurses might have decided to hand this guy off to me partly as a challenge, and partly because _they_ didn't want to deal with him either.

"Hey, aren't you the girl that had some shit with the Wards? What's that about?"

"I'm sorry, I'm not inclined to speak about my private life." That line was getting a whole lot of use today. It felt very legal-friendly. I bet it had gotten plenty of use before I started borrowing it from Panacea. Saying it was almost like meditation, reminding myself to clear my head and focus on the healing, not worry about whatever people were trying to say about me.

"Okay, he has an infected abscess. If you can clean out the infection, apply some antibiotics and seal the wound," the nurse confirmed what I suspected.

Honestly, it wasn't even that hard. Almost the same as all the other cases I treated, the only difference was how hard it was to access for other people. My bots, however, easily entered through an IV line. The hospital provided the drugs, my bots were capable of carrying tiny packets of them directly to the required area. The nice thing was that being able to direct delivery like this was quite useful – sure, Panacea could have just healed it perfectly, but the idea was that I may need to provide care on days or times that Panacea couldn't be here.

After a few minutes, the job was done, and the issue was fixed. While I had been working on him, Panacea had finished with the ER and already gone upstairs. I sighed inwardly, remembering this wasn't a competition. No healer on the planet would ever match her. "It'll take a few more days to heal naturally," I told him. "You should follow up with your family doctor in a week."

"Aww, can't I come here and see you instead?" he asked. "I mean, yer bod makes me feel better than any medicine." He actually winked at me.

I couldn't think of anything to say except a flat "no."

I was really starting to hate Tattletale's costume suggestions. Oh well, too late now. I couldn't exactly re-debut. Maybe I could just wear a lab coat over it. Then again, I didn't need to remind myself why it was so important to keep up the appearance.

In the sewers underneath the hospital, my bots were hard at work. Lisa had actually helped me out – a few discreet messages on the burner phone told me where to find some materials. She had dropped off "trash" near the sewers, all of which were made from high-carbon, high-energy components. I didn't even have to go near them myself, walking within two blocks on my way to the hospital gave me enough control to use my existing bots to funnel the stuff into the sewers and carry them closer to the hospital.

All day, while I had been working with patients, I had been generating and producing more bots. I no longer had to waste time (or arouse suspicion) by buying and carrying the stuff myself.

* * *

The hospital work continued for a few days - I was happy to be there every day, even more often than Amy, since I wasn't going to school. Lisa had been keeping up her promise, leaving me materials at randomized, yet convenient spots near sewer entrances so that I could build bots all day while at the hospital.

After they had grown confident in my tech and abilities, one of the neurologists snagged me. Apparently word had been going around, helped along greatly by Panacea herself, that I was willing and ready to do brains. I'd gotten comfortable with my bots swarming around my own skull and floating through cerebrospinal fluid, so at this point I was eager to live up to my namesake.

It was a patient in long-term palliative care. They'd been in a coma and life support for months, but apparently there had been a change in condition recently. "We'd just like you to confirm brain death. Is that within your range of abilities?" Dr. Mattias asked.

"I think I can do that," I said. Reading the electrical signals in my own brain was second nature by now. I could actually tell, quite distinctly, which parts of the brain controlled which function in my body in more detail than any textbook could.

I pushed my bots into the person's body through an IV again, and the bots swarmed the brain.

There was no detectable activity as far as I could tell. While the lungs moved, it was because of a machine; there was no signal coming from the brain. While the heart was beating, the heart muscle was generating its own rhythm, again not receiving any actual input from the brain.

"Um... this patient, I'm not sensing any activity in the brain at all," I said. I looked at the family members nearby, their eyes already red from crying. "Sorry."

Dr. Mattias patted me on the back. "It's okay. We were just looking for a second opinion," he said.

They had actually performed a standard battery of tests to confirm before bringing me up here, and were ready to pronounce them dead, but had me come up as a potential second opinion. It turned out that they had three patients like this that they wanted to "test" me on, at least for the basics. I went through the same procedure with the other two.

The last one turned out to have minimal brain activity, just enough that the doctors couldn't declare the patient brain dead, though the rest of the brain was so damaged it was impossible for them to ever fully recover. Again, they didn't expect me to actually fix anything, just seeing if I had the ability to actually detect things accurately.

Today, it seemed like I passed with flying colours.

They weren't going to make me doing anything more difficult or risky though; that was going to be saved for another day. Still, the fact that they were promising to look for more cases to supervise me on was delightful.

* * *

The next day, apparently they had been so impressed with my work that they were willing to move me on to some more patients. Brockton Bay General tended to have a disproportionate amount of psychiatric or other brain-afflicted patients these days, thanks to Panacea healing most other cases. Which meant they had a sizable backlog of neuro cases and doctors that were glad to receive an extra hand.

Now that I had proven myself on the very basics on non-cadavers, they were willing to push me on to people who (or their families) had signed parahuman healing consent forms. Mostly, it was people with brain degeneration, who had history of brain damage or strokes and such. None of them were in particularly good condition. We were moving on from people who were _most likely dead_ to those who were _likely to be dead within a month_. Yay! Progress!

Again, the doctors were mostly being cautious. They only gave me patients who they couldn't help with modern technology, and ones whose death was already expected. Still, I managed to prove myself by not killing any of the patients at least, and even help the doctors diagnose things.

They were pretty confident in the safety of my bots now. If a relatively unhealthy patient didn't get worse from my intervention, then at least they could risk relatively healthy, willing patients.

Again, partly because of Panacea, and partly because of the state of the city itself, Brockton Bay General had more psychological or neurological cases than many other hospitals. That, in turn, had caused more brain specialist doctors to be hired. That led to more doctors and scientists who willingly came to Brockton Bay, which incidentally was starting to turn into a hub for brain and psychological research. A lot of it was funded by Medhall, one of the few highly successful businesses that were still based here that survived the economic crash.

In my case, it seemed like some of these researchers wanted their hands on me. Where else would they get relatively healthy people to volunteer as a research subject? The doctors were still being cautious and hesitant to let me treat critical or emergency cases, but here I could get more practice while they got more data.

* * *

"Thank you so much, Eunoia! You've been a great help. See you again Wednesday?" Dr. Harper said as he patted me on the back.

"Yup!" I said. The neurologists had quickly laid claim to me over the ER docs when they realized I could do all these things that Panacea couldn't. They actually wanted to help me succeed, too, which was a humongous change from the teachers at Winslow. Probably because I was useful to their careers.

"By the way, if you still have time today, Dr. Kardon wants to talk to you. I think she's in the MRI department today."

Although I was a little fatigued from the amount of work I was being given, all of it was so new and interesting to me that I still wanted to do more. I still had no idea what my powers were really capable of, and having professionals guide me and give me ideas was fantastic. So, I headed down to MRI.

"Eunoia! You're here!" Dr. Kardon said. She was looking over a brain MRI. "So, I had some ideas for a research paper I'm working on, and I was wondering if you could help."

"Of course," I said. "What can I do for you?"

She pulled up images from a different patient on her computer. "Do you know what fMRI is?" Unlike the pictures that she was looking at before, which had been black and white, this one was blurrier but with coloured pixels laid over top of the MRI image.

I shook my head. I may have heard of it through all the textbooks I had read, but I hadn't gone into the technical details. I was more focused on structure and function, and relating that to what I sensed with my bots.

"It's a way of measuring brain activity. We try to estimate what parts of the brain are being used more by measuring the blood flow to different sections of the brain in real-time. You can see on this imaging which parts are getting the most blood, and therefore are the most active. That's the basic gist of it."

I nodded. The general idea seemed simple enough. "How can I help?"

"I'm hoping that, with your tech, you can get a more precise mapping. As you can see from this image, current technology is, well, limited. I've heard you've been working on live brains already?"

"Yeah, I can do that. You just need me to measure the blood flow in real time, right?"

Dr. Kardon nodded. "And your bots are MRI safe? Any metals or magnetic substances?"

"None. They're almost entirely carbon-based. Diamond and graphite-like."

"Excellent! For the first dozen subjects, I'll need you to have your bots in the patients while they're getting an fMRI test, to make sure that the results correlate. Now, the only problem is how we're going to record the data..."

"I could make a model of the brain's blood vessels for you," I said. "But you'll need cameras to record it, I can't remember things well enough to replay it." I used a pound of excess bots and had them form a wireframe shape of the brain. I decided to let a bunch of them enter my own bloodstream, and copied my own brain's blood vessels into the model I had in my hands. All I needed to do was mimic where the bots were at any given time; my Master power gave me that information easily.

Dr. Kardon was staring at the active brain model I was holding. Her jaw drooped. "Is this...?"

"My brain right now, yeah." I said.

She watched as the blood vessels shifted very slightly here and there. Her eyes darted to my face and body, trying to correlate what I was doing with what the model in my hands was doing. I was actually impressed with it myself. I hadn't done this before, even if I had _known_ the information it displayed, I hadn't seen it with my own eyes before. It was beautiful, in a way.

"This is even better than I thought. Eunoia, can you come here every Monday?"

"Sure. I'd love to."

* * *

I was working again in my little cape-healer room for another day, dealing with lots of scrapes, burns, and sometimes bullet wounds. It looked like the gang wars were _still_ escalating. Even though Panacea was working with me, some patients she couldn't do – not just brain patients, but ones who were stick-thin and didn't have enough biological material in their bodies to convert into new tissue. I seemed to be receiving a lot of drug-addled Merchants – those who hadn't been taking care of their bodies at all and had been caught up in the gang war.

Then, I got called out of the room into the ER.

A patient had come in with a possible stroke. These were very time-sensitive, and since Amy didn't do brains, they had been training me and seeing what I could manage. Naturally, they went through the standard procedures for treating a stroke before seeing what I could do with her.

Since one of the CT scanners happened to be down for servicing and maintenance at the moment, there was a _huge_ backlog of critical patients waiting for a scan. I think it might have had something to do with the ongoing gang war; those machines had been going nearly nonstop day after day. I wasn't surprised that one of them needed repairs.

It was really just this reason alone that they got me to check on the patient, just to see if I could find anything. The funny thing about strokes is that they could be caused by several different causes that resulted in similar symptoms; the treatment for them were practically opposites. Which meant the doctors couldn't act until the patient got scanned, and in a situation like this, every second was critical.

"He's got an aneurysm," I told them. "In the left motor cortex."

"You're certain? Not ischemia?" the Dr. Bruneau asked.

"Yup. I can see the damaged blood vessel. It's leaking everywhere," I told him.

"Damn. We'll need to rush him into surgery," he said.

"Uh... I could fix it, if you want. Like, right now," I told him. I'd been reading up on treatments a lot. For the most part, it was just sealing up the vessel. And it was mostly about preventing further damage than reversing existing damage. I could do that. I wanted to show a bit of initiative, hopefully so that I wouldn't be stuck giving band-aids for minor scrapes for another week. In fact, I already done so before I asked, and used my bots to seal up the hole and hold the blood vessel together. It wasn't leaking any more.

Dr. Bruneau looked at me in surprise. "You... can?"

"Yeah. Does a stent work? That's what I did. I just created a stent. It's stopped bleeding now," I told him. I could make it permanent, even when those bots left my range, just by interlinking them and locking them into position. "Should I leave it in there?"

"Yes. Yes, definitely. We'll have to verify through scans and surgery, but I believe it will just be to check," he said.

I couldn't help it. I preened a little.

* * *

**Author's Note**: man, it's been a busy few weeks. Hopefully I can get back on schedule soon.

Before my hiatus, I used to have a vague idea of what to write, and just post stuff as I wrote. The problem with that method (for me, at least) is that I find that I get better ideas as I write, but then I'd have to rewrite earlier chapters. I intended to try something different, having the story almost completely written out, and just making final edits and proofreading as I post each week, but even now I still find myself making major edits and rewrites of every chapter.

I seem to have little talent for actual planning and my creativity seems to flow best at the very last second. Hmmm.


	16. Exhibition 3

Exhibition 3

I found the research I was doing pretty interesting, and I was learning plenty. Dr. Kardon definitely helped explain a lot of details of what I was actually looking at, and the hands-on, real-time experience of the brain research taught me far more and far quicker than reading it out of a textbook.

The subject was interesting enough for me that even outside of the hospital, I was still practicing modelling the brain blood vessels. Mainly on myself. When I went for a jog, I mapped out how my brain coordinated that stuff. When I was redesigning my bots to be better for brain research, I was still mapping out how my brain was working there. Even when I was relaxing, I still focused on how my brain relaxed. It was just so interesting now that I was aware of it; I just wanted to map out ALL the things my brain did.

I figured that, eventually, I could do more than just the blood vessels and general electrical signals; my bots might be able to keep track of individual neurons firing.

When I mentioned this to Dr. Kardon, she was, once again, blown away. She wanted me at the hospital almost every day now, and had ideas for dozens of different studies. All of which would probably make her famous within the neurology community.

Previously, studies were limited by what people could fit into an MRI machine. It was obvious if you ever actually gave it some thought (which I didn't, before). A machine which cost millions of dollars and where people had to lay still for half an hour for the pictures to be taken. Which often made it limited to talking, maybe watching a movie, solving a rubik's cube, and stuff like that.

So, when I told her that I had gone jogging and mapped out my own brain activity for fun over the weekend, it left her flabbergasted. I honestly didn't realize it was such a big deal. Now, just like me, she wanted to test _all_ the things.

Meanwhile, she referred me to one of her research partners, Dr. Akagi. Together, with my help, they believed that they would be able to win a Nobel Prize with a new study. How was that for temptation?

Again, this came back to the problem of having to sit inside a multi-million dollar machine for testing to be done. That _really _limited the amount of research that could be done on capes, even those who were willing. Many capes, especially Blasters, Shakers, Tinkers (who often needed metal tools), and Movers categorically could not be tested. At all. I just massively opened up entire categories of research. I would still have problems testing Changers and Breakers, but it was still a huge improvement over the current body of knowledge.

So, for the past thirty-plus years of the existence of Capes, research was still somewhat limited. Dr. Akagi was one of the people who really wanted to change that. And hey, maybe I'd get my name as a co-author on a scientific paper. Famous without being a newspaper headline? That would be nice.

* * *

Not all of my work could be research, though. After what I had accomplished in the ER, and was verified by the surgeons, they were very happy with the results. Sufficed to say, the neurologists and emergency doctors at the hospital were loving me, and were starting to fight for who got to use my time, the way they used to fight over Panacea. I again found myself with more interesting work being pushed on me instead of just basic ER cases. Now I was being pushed around to the elderly care wards, where strokes or long-term aneurysms were common. For a lot of these people, their blood vessels in the brain were in poor condition due to age and lifestyle. They were at risk of a stroke, but not at high enough risk to try surgery.

Now I was being touted as a safer, simpler alternative. With an asterisk. And fine print at the bottom. And signing off on experimental procedures, and initials here and here and here. The director was eager to approve just about anything that would help improve the hospital's showing in whatever place that hospitals get ranked. I wasn't complaining, I got to do more interesting things!

I could deliver blood clotting to seal up a brain bleed, or break up a blood clot that was restricting blood flow, and create microscopic stents that were too fine or difficult to create for normal surgery. I wasn't as good as Panacea in the rest of the body, but I had found my specialty. Many patients were glad to have me around.

The family of this particular patient, however, didn't.

"We want the best! Where is Panacea?" they were shouting. I tried to ignore them, and hopefully the nurses would explain to them why Panacea wasn't here. But they weren't listening.

"We don't want the new girl! Do you know who we are?" I could still hear them shouting outside. I had no idea who they were.

Dr. Mattias put a hand on my shoulder. "Just ignore her. I'll handle it. We get those all the time; patients who think they know better than the doctors. They read one story online about how one doctor messed up a diagnosis or something, and they use it as an excuse to get what they want."

I nodded and moved on to the next patient, while the other lay dying in his bed. It was almost a textbook case; I could have finished in five minutes if the family had been willing to sign the damned forms. But no, they wanted Panacea, even though she didn't heal brains, and they were the type to yell and scream until they got their way. Fifty-year-old toddlers.

After I had treated several other patients, that family had finally relented when they finally realized their only other option was non-cape medical procedures, which had a much lower success rate. I don't know how many times the doctors had to explain to them that Panacea didn't do brains, and the patient had a brain issue. The time had passed; they were on blood thinning drugs, but the brain damage had occurred and was likely irreversible. I was brought in to break up the blood clot a little faster, but really I had just sped up the process by an hour or two, and missed the critical window earlier on.

I felt terrible that I couldn't save the patient. Yeah, it was the family's fault for being idiots and wasting precious time. But still, here was a person right in front of me that I could have saved and got held back by selfish dumbasses and permission forms. Thankfully, Dr. Mattias explained it to the patient for me when I finished. I certainly didn't want to deal with them.

That didn't do anything for the patient's temperament though. "What? How long did you spend in there? Did you even do anything? Is this some kind of scam? You stupid girl! Why call yourself a healer?"

Holy crap some people just never stopped complaining. Sure, most people were quite friendly and thankful. But a single bad patient stuck in my mind more than ten good ones. I really needed to go out and beat up some thugs with Abyssal to work off some steam.

* * *

Thank goodness New Wave had called together a team meeting to break up the hospital work I was doing. This time, we had all gathered at the Pelhams' house. Everyone except Flashbang was there.

"Okay, everybody. The Protectorate's asking for our help because they're expecting the big one," Lady Photon said.

"The big one?"

"For the past few weeks, the Empire has been losing capes. So far, Hookwolf, Victor, Alabaster, Cricket, and now Stormtiger have been captured. This is a heavy blow to the Empire, and Kaiser is rallying the troops while Lung is going off on a rampage. The main issue is trying to make this permanent.

"Due to various extenuating circumstances, they've been held at either PRT headquarters or the Rig until now, awaiting transport to a more secure facility. That move is today. This is also Kaiser's best chance to break out five of his capes and regain power, so we expect that's what he'll do. There's also a chance he has hired mercenaries or received support from Gesselschaft."

"Any ideas which capes Gesselschaft provided?"

"No idea just yet. But again, Lung probably considers this an opportunity to end the Empire once and for all, so he might show up as well."

"Great. It'll be a real party," Laserdream sighed.

"Panacea and Eunoia, we don't want you anywhere near the battle, but on hand to take care of injuries. Are you okay with that?" We both nodded. I was actually eager to be closer, and maybe put Abyssal to use. Even if we were sitting in some armored car or something.

"Alright, let's go. We're dividing up, since there are two convoys. One might be a decoy, or maybe they've divided the prisoners in half, but I haven't been told the details. We defend them either way," Lady Photon said.

* * *

I summoned as many bots as I could through the sewers when we passed near the hospital on the way to the PRT headquarters. They weren't too far from each other, and though I wasn't sure where the actual fight would happen, I just needed enough bots in range. To get Abyssal to his proper size, a thousand pounds was a _lot_ of bots, especially to try to squeeze through the sewers without clogging. Since we were only driving by, I only had control of them briefly, and I just barely got enough of them moving. It wasn't quite enough to make him full-size, but I might have enough to give some criminals a scare.

At the PRT HQ, we received more details. New Wave, who had more flying capes, would mostly be helping to escort a convoy departing from the Rig. That one had some pretty heavy hitters, including Dauntless and even Dragon providing a little backup. The other convoy would be departing from PRT HQ with more ground-based forces and travelling through the city streets. We still weren't told which one had which villains – operational security and all.

Panacea and I were going to ride along with another patrol/coordination unit in an armoured van, which would have a few fast-moving backup capes like Velocity and Vista ready to assist whichever convoy was facing more resistance.

That was the weirdest part. I still remembered the pamphlet I had picked up when I originally intended to join the Wards; it was supposed to be a program for young capes to be safe. The bank robbery was one thing; the Undersiders were just small-time thieves. Today they were expecting the entire town's heaviest hitters. Were all the Wards involved? How the hell would they explain to the parents what was happening?

Lucky for me, sitting in between the two planned routes, that actually placed me close enough to the reserves I had stored in my workshop. Now it was just a waiting game. We waved goodbye to Laserdream, Lady Photon, Shielder, and Brandish, who were joining the Rig team. Glory Girl stayed with the HQ team, since they assumed that the heaviest hitters would take the land route, and they needed bigger Brutes to match. There were a limited number of options for villains hitting the Rig convoy's air and water route, and between New Wave's Blasters, Miss Militia, and Dragon's support, most of their bases were covered.

I avoided speaking much with the Protectorate members. I just waited quietly with Panacea. She hugged Glory Girl before we started moving out. I stepped into the armoured van, but Vista and Velocity were in another vehicle in the convoy. I hope that meant our vehicle was the most-protected.

There were no windows in our vehicle, just heavy armour plating. I used the bots in the street to see, but so far, there wasn't anything going on. Then again, the criminals would have had to be especially stupid or bold to pull something so close to PRT HQ. I made my bots scurry through the alleys in small blobs, keeping to the shadows.

One good thing, though, was that the route we were taking put me within range of my workshop. The support team was keeping to the safer parts of town, hopefully where fewer capes would be attempting an ambush. When my workshop came into range, I had all the bots gather up and finally create Abyssal. Somewhere between seven and eight feet tall, as one big unit, he could run and move faster than trying to make the tiny bots move by themselves.

I tried to keep my expression neutral, even bored, as I used spare bots in the streets to find nazis or ABB wearing gang colours.

It didn't take long. They were near the edge of my range, where the HQ transport team was moving.

My breath hitched as a big pickup truck with massive bull bars sped through an intersection and T-boned one of the lead escort vehicles. For a second, I debated whether I should warn them and reveal more of my abilities, but it was too late anyway. The area exploded into chaos faster than I could even speak a sentence.

I heard a whole lot of shouting from the front of the van.

"_Vehicle down, vehicle down!"_

"_We have contact, Defensive perimeter!"_

People were jumping into action. Through my bots, I could see Velocity leap out and join the fight.

Crusader and Rune flew in from above. Crusader's ghosts swarmed into the vehicles, directly attacking the drivers and ignoring the all the armour. Armsmaster immediately halted his motorcycle, located Crusader, and hurled his halberd with frightening accuracy. Crusader had to fly out of the way, which disrupted his control of the ghosts just long enough for Battery to reached the downed PRT troopers. The halberd disappeared, teleporting back into Armsmaster's hand. Something unfolded out of the weapon, and he leaped into the fray.

Meanwhile, Rune launched a large boulder at one of the trucks at the back of the convoy, probably aiming to pin us in, but Assault used his power to simply tank the impact, causing the boulder to stop just short of the car and drop pointlessly onto the road. He used the energy that charged him up to smash straight into one of the valkyrie twins, bowling over the already-twenty-foot-tall woman.

Glory Girl shot off to wrestle with the other valkyrie twin.

Triumph let out a deafening shout, which was enough to knock over one of the Empire's vehicles. It was enough to shake up all my bots in its wake too; I lost vision in that area for a while because it got far too scrambled and confusing.

It was absolute chaos, to say the least. PRT troopers jumped out of the vehicles in a practiced manner, loading up containment foam guns, but they were beset by large numbers of their nazi followers. Kaiser was somewhere, as evidenced by the large number of blades shooting out of random surfaces, but I couldn't see him through the chaos.

Every once in a while I would see a streak of red, or blue, which was probably Assault or Battery.

I watched as a relatively innocent-looking couple hiding in an alley turned out not to be bystanders who needed help, but enemy capes as well. The man turned into fog, who started cover and choke people. The woman, I didn't know her power, but she had plenty of flashbang grenades. Interesting to note, my bots didn't go blind from them. Maybe it was because of the way they worked; they just absorbed the light energy and helped recharge them a little more. Still, that woman seemed to be well-armed and was very disruptive based on weapons alone.

I decided it was time to break out my little toy. I'd start well away from the heroes so they didn't mistake him for some kind of Empire backup or mercenary. Make it obvious that I was hitting the Empire.

Abyssal ran out of an alley and rushed at the unpowered nazis. Using the huge swords, I knocked them off their feet and smashed them into cars through sheer momentum alone. I didn't want to cut them and accidentally kill them, so I used the flat of the blades, hopefully only leaving them with broken bones and minor concussions. Still, he was nearly twenty feet wide holding both swords, and managed to sweep through plenty of low-level footsoldiers on my first pass.

With the "smoke" of bots that leaked from his body, I had them gather on the guns, cutting through the springs and firing pins to make the weapons useless. Hopefully, anyone who wasn't down and out wouldn't be able to pick up a weapon and rejoin the fight easily.

Abyssal was certainly drawing a lot of attention, as I intended. Guns started turning on him, and he was hit with a spray of bullets from multiple directions. The bullets, naturally, did nothing. They basically shoved a few bots out of the way and damaged some, but I had a thousand pounds of bots to spare.

Abyssal kept smashing through any Empire member I could see. Until one of the Valkyrie twins, now well over thirty feet tall, rushed over and, uh, stepped on him.

As strong as he was, I wasn't going to fight that. I let him get squished, dispersing his bots and looking for a more optimal fight elsewhere.

And then Lung crashed into the scene. He had already ramped up to partial dragon form, with metal scales and flames erupting from his body. He was already taller than Abyssal, but even then he was dwarfed by the three-storey-tall woman. Unlike Abyssal, he was able to match her strength despite the size difference, pounding her into the ground as she tried to fight off both the heat and the strength.

Unfortunately, my bots couldn't take the heat. The ones nearest Lung sizzled and burnt to ash. I had to get out of the metaphorical kitchen.

Not that I had much of a choice, either. The support team was mobilizing. Panacea and I were being driven further away to get to safety while heroes retreated for healing. I pulled Abyssal back with us as we were driven away, so that I wouldn't lose control of all those bots. And to protect ourselves.

An injured Triumph was brought to us, and Panacea healed him as quickly as she could. Several other injured PRT troopers came through as well, sporting everything from bullet wounds to broken bones. I helped stabilize them while Panacea healed them completely.

Velocity was pulled in later as well, this time sporting burns. Lung, no doubt.

We were far from the fighting now; and there wasn't much I could do with Abyssal. Still, I kept him prowling around near the edge of my range, just seeing what I could do to help. Maybe keep the villains from interrupting the healing-conga line that was going.

I felt Abyssal slow down partially. Wait, that wasn't right. _Part of_ Abyssal slowed down, shearing his body apart. A Shaker who could slow things down in an area? That meant Krieg must have been nearby. Protecting Panacea and myself took priority; I had to assume that the PRT's battle plan was going to work, since we were further out of range now.

Still, the Empire was attempting to break out their detainees, and hitting the support team was definitely part of their plans. I guess Krieg was a good candidate for that; they didn't want to do something as horrible as attacking and injuring Panacea, but he could slow down the team and interfere non-lethally.

Unfortunately, all the capes had already departed to help with the fight. The PRT troopers quickly identified where the enemy cape was, and moved with practiced precision. Panacea and I were quickly pulled back into the armoured van, doors locked.

They spread out and shot containment foam at the cape, but all the streams of sticky liquid suddenly lost momentum near him and fell to the ground, short of their target.

He charged forward, intending to take the PRT troops in hand-to-hand. His main targets were moving extremely slowly; even though they were trained in close-quarters combat, their movements were sluggish, as if fighting through molasses. Krieg easily took them down, their blocks and counterattacks moving a quarter the speed that they should have been. Krieg's hits looked like they struck with more impact than should be possible for a normal person as well.

Other PRT troops tried to spray him down, more concerned about taking out the cape than getting their allies caught in the crossfire. It was non-lethal stuff, after all. But once again, Krieg dodged the streams of foam and _flew_ out of the way, despite being surrounded.

Krieg shouldn't be able to fly. I read his profile on PHO, nobody had seen him fly before.

Oh, wait, the Empire had a power lender. Othala. She was also their healer. She had to be somewhere...

While the PRT continued to fight Krieg, I searched with my bots, hoping that Othala was nearby. Although nearly everything within a two-block radius was in my view, I had a hard time focusing on every person individually. Othala certainly wasn't a fighter, and she might not have been wearing her costume. After all, she didn't participate in the fight directly.

I did find her. In a car, guarded by Empire footsoldiers. She was the Empire's support, the counterpart to me and Panacea. Like us, the Empire had moved her away from the main fight, which put her closer to us. Lucky me, unlucky her.

Abyssal formed in front of the car. His looming form instantly sent the driver into a panic. They threw the car in reverse, hitting one of his own men and sending him bouncing over the trunk.

Abyssal chased, ignoring the gunfire. The bullets made holes in the body, which merely reformed as the bots shifted. He ran straight ahead, bowling over the goons, and leaped up. A thousand pounds of mass smashed down onto the hood of the car, with my bots seeping into the engine and vents. The car stopped working quickly when the lines and hoses were sliced apart. Not that the driver could do much anyway; Abyssal smashed straight through the windshield and yanked him out of the seat, tossing him into the pile of Empire members behind.

I didn't bother opening the door; Othala was frozen in fear. Abyssal reached in, and I elongated his arm a bit so he could get from the windshield all the way to the rear seats. I pulled her out, ignoring her protests.

Now where to bring her? The only PRT team I knew about, and was within range, was the one we were with. And they weren't doing too well. Krieg with his additional flying powers, and now with a stolen containment foam shooter, he had practically eliminated the PRT team himself.

I guess they could use a little backup.

Abyssal began running for us, just as Krieg came up to our armoured van.

He started hammering away at the door. "Get back, girls," said the only remaining PRT officer inside the vehicle with us. He held up a taser to the door. I could see the armoured door begin to dent while the vehicle shook.

A few more hits, and the doors burst open. I wondered why the PRT officer didn't shoot, but apparently he was trying. Krieg looked at him, the trigger on the taser already pulled. The man was frozen, and Krieg lazily stepped to the side while the taser's electrode darts shot forwards, inching forward through the air for several seconds.

Krieg looked at the projectile with some amusement while he walked around it, then let it drop to the ground. A punch, a knee, and an elbow that the officer couldn't respond to sent him to the ground, leaving Krieg alone with us.

"Stay out of the way if you don't want to get hurt," Krieg said. "I wouldn't want to hurt a pair of perfectly useful white girls."

"**SSSSSSSSSSSSTTOOOOOOOOOP**."

Ayssal had arrived, showing up right behind Krieg, holding Othala hostage. A single hand was enough to completely encircle her neck, and she was struggling not to choke as she had both hands gripping his "gauntlets." Not that I would actually choke her to death, but it just made it look more dangerous.

The look on Amy's face was priceless. Krieg, on the other hand, was an experienced combatant, though I was sure his instincts were telling him to run, and run quickly. Especially when Abyssal drew his sword with his other hand.

Still, he hesitated, looking at Othala. At least he had loyalty to his teammates, I'll give him that. He must have been thinking of a way to free her. I took that opportunity to run up to him from behind.

Abyssal had done a good job of being a distraction. Even as Krieg used his power to slow Abyssal down and freeze him in place, he noticed me a second too late. I felt myself slow down as well, but not before I had my hands – and bots – on him.

A small number of bots pierced through his skin and entered his bloodstream. He pulled away when he felt the pinprick, but I had gotten what I needed into him.

He apparently couldn't do anything to the bots that were inside his own body. Though my own body was trapped, unable to move, I could still think clearly. I directed my bots to just cut off supply to his brain, shutting off a few key arteries.

A few seconds later, he collapsed to the ground, and I could move again. I let the blood flow again before he received any permanent brain damage.

"Panacea, a little help?" I asked as I picked up a containment foam gun. I sprayed it liberally all over Krieg, cementing him to the ground for the time being.

Abyssal placed Othala on the ground. "**DOOOOON'T MOOOOOOOVVVVVE,**" he said, bringing his sword high above his head with one arm with the tip pointed down at her face. He let go of Othala. Her legs didn't seem to be working as she collapsed to the ground, barely managing to get to a sitting position. She stared up at the massive knight, and the blade that was as heavy as she was ready to drop on her.

"Panacea, would you like to do the honours?" I asked, handing the foam sprayer to her.

Amy walked up to me, looking at Krieg, then Abyssal, then me, then to Othala, then back to Kreig, then the PRT officer on the ground, and finally to the gun. "Might be a nice change of pace," she said as she depressed the trigger.

* * *

"I can't believe _Amy and Taylor_ were the only ones of us who took down a villain. EACH!" Vicky threw her arms up into the air.

"What did you actually do to Krieg? How did you take him down?" Eric asked.

"Just some minor brain surgery," I said. Amy gave me a scrutinizing look. "Nothing permanent!" I added defensively.

"Hey, come on, we get partial credit for Lung," Mr. Pelham said. "And my dear ladies managed to fend off Purity. That's no easy task."

"Yeah, but we were just guarding a decoy," Crystal muttered.

"An important decoy," Mrs. Dallon pointed out. "If Purity was hitting the HQ team, who knows how it would have turned out. Good thing most of your fight was over the water. If Purity was fighting directly against Lung..."

"Lord's Market might have ceased to exist?" Eric said.

"And everything else in a three-block radius. I wouldn't call that an exaggeration."

"And we only get partial credit for our takedowns, too," Amy added.

"Yeah, who was that new cape?"

All eyes turned to me and Amy.

I shrugged.

Amy shrugged too. "He just disappeared after I foamed Othala. By the time we were done healing the PRT troops, he was gone. Didn't leave a name."

"Is he a hero?"

"Well, he was fighting against the Nazis..." I pointed out quickly.

"But he does look kinda like Sauron," Amy added.

"Wait, like the Lord of the Rings movies, or Earth Aleph's version?" Eric asked.

"Maybe a bit in between?" I hadn't watched the Aleph versions. Was that what Lisa had been going for? I guess I had used elements of that character subconsciously. It had been a quick go-to when you needed a huge, evil-looking knight, after all.

"Well, good job, at least. It's not a total loss. A bit of a trade for the Empire, and we've taken down Lung. Normally I'd call it a terrible day, but with the two captures you made, I think we actually came out better than before," Mrs. Pelham said.

"But didn't all of the prisoners escape?" I asked.

"Hookwolf and three of their lower-powered capes, sure. In exchange, we have Othala, Krieg, Night, and Lung. Krieg and Night are two of their deadlier capes, and I'd call capturing Lung worth five."

"Wait, how did we capture Night? I thought she was super-deadly when she transforms," Crystal asked.

Vicky shrugged. "That's the thing. She didn't transform, for some reason. Velocity got her and then they just had two PRT officers watch her."

Huh. After taking down Othala, I did keep watch of as much of the fight as I could. I remembered the lady with grenades on her belt walking with a man that transformed into gas. I didn't think Abyssal could do much against someone who was physically gas, so I didn't bother. I just kept watch on them, until Velocity ran up to her, jabbed her with a tranquilizer, and then ran off. The gas-man (Fog, I guess) couldn't react fast enough to stop him. I didn't even realize she had powers, because she just... didn't do anything. I just kept watching them to keep track of the danger.

Most of the rest of the fight was cleanup and healing for me and Panacea. So I didn't get to see all of what was going on. Though there were _plenty_ of injuries.

From what I could tell, in the end, Lung had acted as predicted. He was "helping" the PRT, in a sense, in that he wanted to make sure the villains were sent out of Brockton Bay and made their way to the actual prisons. But he got a little too aggressive, wanting to take down more of the Empire along the way.

Kaiser had seen to this, and instead of focusing on the breakout, he had all his capes focus on Lung instead. Armsmaster used some kind of advanced tranquilizer that eventually brought down Lung. He had made a judgement call; he was more worried about collateral damage than letting a few low-level Empire members escape.

With Lung out of the picture, the breakout was practically inevitable. Oni Lee had gone wild, but wasn't able to break his boss free and escaped. The Empire had brought _everyone_ they could muster for the day. The fact that we still managed to capture a few of them, with zero deaths, was a small victory.

I couldn't wait for things to quiet down again. Get back to the hospital, get back to doing research and medicine.

"Say," I said to the group. "Could I ask you guys a favour?"

"You're the hero of the day," Mrs. Pelham said. "What do you want?"

"Well, Dr. Akagi at the hospital wanted some volunteers – cape volunteers, for this research study..."


	17. Exhibition 4

Exhibition 4

"You sure that this is safe?" Shielder asked.

"Yeah, my bots will get inside with just a needle poke," I said. Most of my bots were floating around in a standard bag of saline, sterilized hours ahead of time. Technically I didn't need them to do all that, but the doctors preferred it this way. It saved them from liabilities and lawsuits, and gave them a bit more control over the process.

"I hate needles," he said with a little shudder.

"Oh, don't be such a big baby," Glory Girl said.

"You're one to talk," her cousin shot back. "You don't have to deal with needles because you're invincible."

Vicky just laughed as the nurse poked Shielder.

"Okay, Shielder and Eunoia - are you ready?" Dr. Akagi asked.

I formed the model of Shielder's brain as the injected bots circulated to his brain.

"Okay, Shielder, could you use your power to make the strongest shield you can?" Dr. Akagi asked him.

Even before activating his power, I was already noticing changes to his brain. The two regions of the brain that were already known to be associated with capes - the Corona Pollentia and Corona Gemma - lit up like fireworks. I think the anticipation, or preparation to use powers, already made people use those parts of the brain.

Shielder used his namesake ability and produced a massive, powerful glowing energy barrier in front of him. As he actually produced the shield, other parts of his brain lit up, most obviously his motor control areas, since he tended to use his arms to direct his shields. Most of this was identical to what I had seen from the rest of his family.

Dr. Akagi recorded the data. As I expected, and much like the rest of his family, several parts of his brain lit up, but most importantly, the Corona Pollentia and Corona Gemma. After a minute, we had Shielder relax again and we kept recording until his brain activity returned to baseline.

It only took another minute for my bots to all leave his body and return to me.

"And that's it. Amazing," Dr. Akagi said. "That only took a little more than two hours to do most of New Wave. It would normally take that long for one normal patient with the MRI. You're a godsend, Eunoia. I have a week's worth of data to analyze."

"Thanks," I said sheepishly, scratching my head. Though I hadn't done anything to any of my subjects, some... issues hadn't gone unnoticed. I now knew that Mark Dallon had signs of depression. Amy was _really_ stressed out. But I couldn't actually do anything; I didn't have a way to reliably fix brain chemistry and all that.

And even if I did, I didn't even know how to bring the subject up with them before beginning treatment.

Still, I didn't get to scan everyone. Mrs. Dallon opted out; I don't know if she was just generally paranoid or if she didn't trust me in particular. Or maybe she didn't trust the doctors and the information about her brain being published (despite the assurance that the data would be anonymized).

I just had trouble pushing bots into Victoria; her defenses and invulnerability kept disrupting things. I wasn't sure if I could properly control my bots even after I managed to get them inside her. Nearly everyone else was game, though. Six members, plus myself; that was a good start for the study.

"Go ahead, take the rest of the day off with your friends," Dr. Akagi said. "I had no idea we'd be done this fast. I'll have to look for more Capes to recruit for this study."

"Sure! Thanks, Doc!" Glory Girl said.

"You kids go on ahead. We've got more things to do," Lady Photon said. "Just be home before dark, I want to have a meeting before tonight's patrol."

"Thanks, Mom!" Laserdream told her. As we left the hospital's parking lot, everyone took off their masks. and put on their jackets. I retracted my bots and shaped them into something resembling a hoodie and jeans. "This is great! We rarely have an excuse for all of us to just hang out. Thanks, Eunoia."

"I'm not sure what I really did," I said.

"You gave us an excuse and got tons of spare time," Crystal clarified.

"So, where to? Fugly Bob's?" suggested Vicky.

"You _always_ go to Fugly Bob's," Amy pointed out.

"What, you don't want a greasy burger?"

"No. Anything but greasy. Ugh. I don't know, maybe some sushi? I heard a new place opened up on the Boardwalk," Crystal suggested.

"Ugh, I don't know if I can handle raw fish..." Vicky said, sticking her tongue out.

Crystal rolled her eyes. "It's not like that's the _only_ thing they serve. Get something with chicken if you want."

Eric laughed. "You really should try it. I don't want fish in any form _but_ sashimi now. The stuff's delicious!"

* * *

Bellies full and horizons broadened, we sat in the restaurant and chatted while trying to decide if we were full enough or if we wanted to order something more.

"Green tea ice cream? That sounds interesting..." I said, looking at the dessert menu.

"Oh, that stuff's good, you have to try that too," Crystal told me.

"You say that about literally everything on the menu," Vicky countered.

"But I'm not wrong," Crystal answered with a grin.

"Raw fish is still gross."

"I thought it was pretty good," Amy said.

Vicky looked at her sister with fake shock and horror. "Ames! You've been taken in by the dark side!"

I laughed.

People screamed.

Our eyes were suddenly drawn to the entrance, where Hookwolf and Stormtiger were barring the way. Fuck, Hookwolf only _just_ got broken out of jail and he was already back on the street, ready to just mess up some more innocent lives? Did he have some violence quota he failed to meet while in jail?

Behind them was a crowd of non-powered skinheads, sporting baseball bats, crowbars, and knives. "So you fucking slants thought the Empire was going down? You think you could dirty our boardwalk with your dogshit food? Looks like you need a reminder that..."

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," I muttered. I hadn't been paying attention. Stupid me, I could have seen them from blocks away, but I had been too tired from hours of intense brain scanning, and too engrossed with chatting with my teammates and friends. Then again, maybe they hadn't actually put on their masks until they were close by, because I certainly didn't remember a metal wolf walking towards us.

"I got this," Vicky said. "Ames, Tay-tay, stay back."

"Correction. _We_ got this," Crystal added, getting out of her seat along with her brother.

Glory Girl, Laserdream, and Shielder burst forward from the back of the restaurant to the entrance, bowling over the two white supremacists who were busy posturing to the crowd. Glory Girl, being the fastest, struck first and smashed straight into Hookwolf, completely ignoring the sharp metal spikes protruding from his body. Her tackle hit with the power of a freight train. It was one of the few times that she could honestly go all-out and not risk killing her target, and she relished the opportunity. She sent him flying straight out the door and into the Boardwalk. His barbed body did far more damage to his own subordinates than it did to Glory Girl. Several Empire members were already on the ground in a bloody heap before Hookwolf stopped skidding across the Boardwalk.

Stormtiger could fly, and he immediately shot up into the air when he saw Glory Girl rocketing towards them. Laserdream was an easy match for him, though. His control of air wasn't limited to wind; he could compress air and cause invisible explosions, or block physical objects and even slightly deflect bullets.

Unfortunately for him, none of that helped against Laserdream. His air compression abilities did nothing to block, deflect, or slow down her lasers. It was such an unfortunate matchup that, in under a minute, he was falling out of the sky.

Shielder, on the other hand, simply stayed at the entrance at the store to prevent any of the gang members from entering.

I guessed the gang members had expected to come in, rough up some people, and be gone before the Protectorate heroes could arrive. They probably didn't count on being blindsided by most of New Wave already being inside.

I felt a little useless. I had Abyssal ready to go again, but he was too far away. I had wanted to use him to do some crimefighting, but I was too tired and distracted from all the hospital work. But seeing the rest of New Wave take down those villains, I was itching to do some heroing more than ever.

"Shouldn't we be doing something?" I asked Amy. She held up a finger. I saw that she was already on the phone, presumably with her parents.

The only bots I had on me were the ones I used at the hospital, which was just enough to reshape into a protective layer under my clothes. I didn't have enough to even protect Panacea. The most I could do was, I dunno, send a few bots into the villains' brains.

Then again, that would actually do a _lot_, if I wasn't careful. Probably lethal. I didn't want to go there right now. Although, as I watched the others fight, I wondered if the villain mind worked the same way as the heroes. We'd only tested New Wave so far, who were mostly from the same family. Maybe it was different for others.

Stormtiger was lying in a heap on the ground along with a few other Empire gangsters. Most of the others had fled. I heard a splash, and Glory Girl came flying back towards us. It looked like the situation was mostly contained, and some people were calm enough to take out their phones and snap pictures.

I let some of my bots creep towards Stormtiger invisibly. He was still lying on the ground, bruised and dazed. He was conveniently bleeding from a few open wounds, which meant my bots had an easy way into his bloodstream. I swear it was just for research. I monitored his brain for a while, to make sure he wasn't actively using his powers, before I decided he was better off unconscious.

"Hey Vicky, where's Hookwolf? You didn't let him escape, did you?"

"Uh, sorta? I dropped him in the water."

Eric glanced over. "Uh, does Hookwolf actually know how to swim?" he asked. I wasn't sure about his baseline human form, but I would wager that a guy with hundreds of pounds of metal sticking out of his body wouldn't have much talent in the water.

"Vicky, go back and check on him. You're not letting a villain drown," Amy said.

"Aww, can't I let him drown a little bit, at least?" Vicky whined. "He can learn to appreciate other skin colours. Like blue."

"Vicky, now. Or else you're just making more work for me," Amy said, crossing her arms.

"Fine." Vicky flew back out, over the handrails and looked down at the water. We heard a painful groan, and a splash.

A few minutes later Vicky dumped a limp, coughing Hookwolf on the Boardwalk. Both of them were dripping wet. "You owe me a new dress, you hear?" She angrily kicked the man, causing him to spurt a mouthful of water out. "Stupid Nazi, you make me fight you and then I have to save your stupid life? And now this thing's _filthy!"_ She gave him another kick before Crystal restrained her.

* * *

I was feeling particularly frustrated after an annoying day at the hospital. It turned out that I had to heal some of the gangsters that had just roughed us up at the restaurant. At least they didn't get Panacea; they didn't deserve perfect healing. Still, I was obligated to treat them. Hippocratic oath and all. On top of that, a healer really only maintained the informal truce and protection by all gangs if they maintained _some_ neutrality and willingness to heal rivals.

I wanted to take my frustrations out on more criminals. Sure, I would probably be creating more work for myself, but I think having an outlet for my stress was worth it. And as long as Panacea wasn't the one healing them, they would be off the streets for a short while. A small win, and this town could use whatever it could get.

All this time while I had been busy helping at the hospital with both the clinic and research, I was building more bots. Not just the high-quality ones hidden in the sewer, funded in part by Lisa. I had plenty of low-quality ones in the streets surrounding the hospital and my home, slowly converting the trash into something useful. I spread the bots around during my morning runs and while I travelled to and from the hospital.

In my hidden workshop/storeroom near the Market, I had a literally half a ton of my most advanced, high-quality microbots all ready to be used. And after that attack on the restaurant, I was itching to "clean up" the streets myself. Unable to sleep, I chose that night to sneak outside and go for a jog.

There were enough of my low-quality bots spread around, though I didn't spend a lot of time near the worst neighbourhoods. I had a bit of a choice, then – I could stick to the areas I had already spread my bots, and have very clear senses all around me, or I could wander towards the seedier sections and work on spreading my bots there, but I wouldn't be able to see as much.

I started by jogging towards my workshop to retrieve the bulk of bots that would form Abyssal. After that, I moved mostly through the shadows, keeping myself hidden, several blocks behind Abyssal as I got him to patrol the streets.

I was certain very few people had noticed my low-quality robots, or the fact that the streets were a little bit cleaner. While I didn't have enough to sneak inside every building to find all the gang's safehouses and bases, I did have enough coverage of the streets themselves that I noticed when there were villains gathering.

I was looking for something simple. A mugging, a drug deal, something simple like that. A lot of my bots near my workshop had crossed over into ABB territory, so I had some vision of that area, but I didn't want to go in there. Lung may have been captured, but Oni Lee was still around. If I had one weakness despite the extended senses of my bots, it would be teleporters.

So I chose to head towards Empire territory instead. Hookwolf and Stormtiger were already down as of this afternoon. And with Lung out of the picture, they were actively attemping to take back control of territory they had lost. So I wanted to make sure they didn't manage to claw themselves back into power.

The funny thing was that I _did_ find capes. Just not Empire capes.

I made my bots form Abyssal in all his dark, fearsome glory to face three demonic dogs and their riders.

Tattletale jumped off with her hands held up. "Wait!" she cried out. "We're not hitting anyone innocent, promise!"

Obviously she recognized the hero that she helped design. But I did say that if I had caught her doing some villainy, I'd be a hero and take her down.

"Uh, Tats? You know this guy?"

"Yeah, he's a hero, but..."

"You call _that_ a hero!?" Grue shouted.

Bitch said nothing, but the dogs were growling. The dogs may have been the size of minivans, but Abyssal was tall enough to look her in the eye even while she sat on top of them.

"Yeah, yeah. Nobody move, just let me explain okay?" Tattletale tried to shush the rest of her team. She turned towards Abyssal. "Look, we heard Hookwolf got caught today. He runs dogfighting rings. Lots of innocent dogs forced to fight to the death. Bitch wants to rescue them. That's not villainy, right? You wanna help us?"

I was sure they were going to take whatever money happened to be in those places, but I'd be a hypocrite if I tried to stop them from stealing from other villains. Abyssal nodded. I was fine rescuing some puppies and hurting the Empire 88 some more.

Tattletale breathed a sigh of relief and hopped on to her dog. "Okay, just follow us."

"Seriously? He's helping? How do you know this guy?" Grue refused to take his eyes off Abyssal, who stood as tall as he was sitting on top of the demon dog. He continued to glance back every few seconds while we ran through the alleys until we reached a warehouse. Given the speed that the dogs could run, I was practically sprinting behind them to keep up, while staying a few blocks behind and out of sight. I _really_ needed to find a way to extend my range.

Tattletale just gave a smug smirk at her teammate instead of answering.

"In there," Bitch said, pointing at the building. She sniffed the air and looked impatient, ready to charge straight into the building and tear apart everything inside. Her demon-dogs did the same.

I decided to move the surrounding bots from the streets to the inside, just to scout. The building had plenty of holes in the walls and poorly-maintained weather stripping, leaving plenty of entrances for my tiny machines.

Abyssal held up a hand to stop Bitch from rushing in. He, too, dissolved into smoke and seeped into the building.

There were plenty of gangsters, alright. And dogs. And guns. I knew Tattletale was, well, squishy. So I decided to form Abyssal at the opposite side of the building to attract their attention. I made sure to do it in a dark, unattended corner.

"We're waiting for his signal," Tattletale said to the rest of her team.

"What's his signal?" Grue asked.

The gangsters were certainly surprised when a nine-foot-tall monster started smacking them around with a pair of eight-foot-long swords. I did my best to make sure the strikes were nonlethal, though they would certainly be feeling bruised. Lots of shouting and gunfire followed, none of which was harmful to Abyssal - they punched holes through him, sure, but all that did was knock the bots off his body. They could just move back towards the main body and reform.

The sound of gunfire and shouting was easily heard outside.

"That's the signal," Tattletale said. The Undersiders charged in. Darkness flooded the other end of the building as three massive dogs charged through the doors, knocking down as if they were made of paper. Chaos and confusion erupted once more, just as they had all begun to rally against Abyssal.

Despite the extremely brutal appearance of the dogs, they were surprisingly well-trained, not killing any of the people (though they did maim some of them).

It had only taken a few minutes, but between the group of us, there were at least twenty Empire members down on the ground, groaning in pain or unconscious. None of them were capes, though. Oh, and five dogs rescued. Bitch was more worried about them than any of the people, while Grue was raiding the cash reserves that the bookies were keeping. The two dogs in the ring, on the other hand, suffered too many injuries and had to be put down, which angered Bitch even more.

"There's another one," she said.

"Uh, Bitch, maybe we should save that for another night. I'm sure the Empire's aware of the hit now. We might be facing capes if we keep going. I'm not sure if we can carry all the kennels."

"No. Save them all tonight." Bitch was hugging one of the dying dogs with a look of absolute determination on her face. Yeah, I was certain she would keep going whether her team was with her or not.

"Fine! Fine. One more. But if any of the major Empire capes come, we're bailing," Grue said. "Big guy, are you in for another? We're splitting the loot evenly."

What the heck, I'd barely lost any nanobots. Small as they were, only a few were damaged by the bullets and most of them had only been knocked out of place. Abyssal had more durability than I had initially estimated. I gave them a thumbs up through him.

Bitch just grunted and hopped on, carrying all the dogs she could.

Abyssal quietly followed.

* * *

I was getting pretty winded running across town at night, but thankfully I was also able to hide in the shadows to rest. The next dogfighting ring wasn't far, but I hoped it was the last one. We started off doing the same thing; with me scouting ahead inside the building.

This time, the group seemed to be prepared. It seemed like someone from the first warehouse had managed to raise an alarm; this group was already fully armed and hunkering down. There were no fighting dogs; they were fully prepared to fight some capes.

And there were definitely capes already present. Cricket was carrying a pair of chained sickles in her hands, definitely unusual weapons. Along with her cage-helmet as a mask, her costume seemed rather cobbled together without any particular theme, but it was recognizable. The other cape was more obvious; he wore medival-style armour with a long lance. But that wasn't really the obvious part; he had ghosts flying around him. That made him easy to spot and identify.

I wondered if I could get some of my bots into their brains. Like what I had done with Krieg.

For research. I swear.

I tried to infiltrate with Abyssal again, but apparently Cricket had superhuman senses. Maybe my bots weren't as quiet as I thought, maybe she could sense how they changed the way sound echoed off surfaces. She definitely heard something before Abyssal was ready. She pointed to where he was beginning to form, and before he was ready to move, he was already getting peppered with bullets.

Although the bullets didn't do any permanent damage to my bots, the massive volume of firepower did make it difficult for my bots to get into the right place fast enough.

I didn't really care, though. Abyssal charged at them anyway, his body half-formed and full of holes. It didn't matter. The rest of the bots that kept getting blown away, I just let them spread out instead of trying to group them back with the main body.

Of course, the Undersiders had taken all the shooting as the signal to charge in again.

This time, they covered for me, as Bitch's power-enhanced dogs soaked up some of the attention and firepower. Cricket ran towards them even as Grue held back, taking cover while attempting to spread his darkness. It barely slowed down Cricket's attack. In fact, she seemed to be screeching with a high pitch that looked painful for the dogs to listen to. She managed to engage all of them with remarkable agility, bouncing back and forth between multiple opponents. Grue was only just barely able to dodge her razor-sharp sickles before sinking deeper into the cover of his smoke cloud.

Crusader's ghosts floated around, looking for an angle to strike.

I knew Tattletale and Grue were vulnerable to the ghosts, having no real counter against the Empire cape. Which meant I had to target him first if I didn't want them to die. As strong as Cricket was, she did have her hands full against Bitch's dogs.

I decided to make Abyssal an even greater threat to regain their attention. My bots flooded the floor around the unpowered gangsters, mostly solidifying - congealing - around their feet. I yanked at them and caused men to trip and fall en masse. I swarmed over their bodies, forcibly digging through their skin as I entered their bloodstream with my bots. I wasn't going to kill them or give them permanent brain damage, but a little hypoxia would put them out of the fight.

Crusader turned his attention to Abyssal, and sent his ghosts flying at him. To his surprise, I had Abyssal jump straight at him. With his reduced weight, he actually managed to soar higher than even I expected. It certainly took both of us by surprise when the ghosts went straight through Abyssal. I thought they were selective; I saw them hurt PRT troops before. A thousand-pound tackle sent the flying cape crashing to the ground.

I did my best not to crush him to death. His armour helped him survive, but as his medieval armour could protect him from impact and weapons, the gaps between panels may as well have been canyons for my bots.

I didn't need to send many bots into their bloodstream. A few key blood vessels would do it. A partial restriction to the pulmonary arteries would make them short of breath. The coronary vessels would give them a short heart attack. But the fastest way with the fewest bots was to plug up their carotid and vertebral arteries. The brain tended to drop unconscious after only a few seconds lacking oxygen. After they collapsed, I made the bots return to normal blood flow. They would be groggy, but I wouldn't be causing any brain damage. At least, not any more than they inherently had.

Crusader fell to that trick just like any other normal human. I took him out first. The others fell unconscious one by one, as I had difficulty concentrating on the delicate procedure with each of them. Sure, if I was doing something simple like yanking their feet, taking down fifteen at once was easy. Navigating their bloodstream? Now that could only do one at a time if I didn't want to simply turn their brains to mush. Still, they were going down one at a time. They each only had a few seconds to panic as they watched each other collapse.

Crusader's ghosts disappeared as he collapsed as well. I left more bots inside of him, both in case he woke up again and, you know, for research purposes. I needed to be able to tell what was going on in his brain when he used his powers. Not like he would volunteer for Dr. Akagi's experiment.

Without all the bullets pelting the area, I was able to re-form Abyssal quickly. The Undersiders were doing fairly well holding their own, but Cricket was amazingly agile. Even in Grue's pitch-black darkness, she had actually been able to injure him, though not critically. On top of that, she was still dodging between Bitch's dogs, who were snapping at her as well.

Tattletale had taken cover along with Bitch, who had prioritized rescuing the remaining dogs from this warehouse.

I had Abyssal jump in to finish the fight before more Empire capes arrived as reinforcements. I knew for a fact that I was an extremely poor fighter at best, and with the additional chaos of Grue's darkness and three giant dogs, I was more likely to hurt the Undersiders instead of Cricket.

So I had Abyssal half-dissolve again and spread across the floor, hoping to catch Cricket once she stepped on the ground, while trying to tackle her with the main body.

It actually took longer than I had expected. She actually spent very little time touching the ground for someone without flight powers. That girl was leaping from the back of one dog to the other, slicing away at their armoured bodies from on top. Each time they snapped at her or tried to shake her off, she simply jumped and flipped to the next one, hacking at their bodies with her two sickles, occasionally going for an opportunistic long-range strike by swinging them out on their chains. Grue tried to keep her in the dark by following close, but he had grown cautious, suffering some light cuts that had gotten through his motorcycle gear, as well as some deep cuts to his helmet. Adding Abyssal to the mix didn't really slow her down all that much.

Even when Cricket landed on the ground, she didn't stay there long, bouncing up quickly and continuing the fight without pause. I hadn't managed to get enough bots attached to her to trip her up, and she definitely wasn't slowing down. Even though she must have known she was the last one standing, she wasn't giving up. She had the stamina of a bull and the nimbleness of a monkey. I quickly realized she wasn't even on the defensive - she had been attempting to kill Bitch and Tattletale, and her dogs had merely been trying their best to defend their master. One cape, capable of holding back almost all of the Undersiders on her own? I was glad my actual self was hiding several blocks away.

So, I had to present a bigger target with Abyssal. Let her take a swing at him, keep the bots held more loosely so that her weapons would dig deep into his body, then trap them. I made Abyssal leap in front of Grue to take a hit with the sickle on her next attack, then yanked her close.

To her credit, she noticed that the weapon was stuck immediately and let go. She leaped back and reassessed Abyssal, who was standing strong with a huge blade stuck right through the middle of his chest.

But while Abyssal wasn't moving, my other bots were. And a few bots were all I needed. As the two stared each other down, the worked their way up from the floor over her boots, crawling around and through her socks to enter her bloodstream through her ankles. With the amount she was moving, her heart rate was very high, and my bots were quickly pumped through her body.

Just like Crusader, she wasn't immune to having her brain starved of oxygen for a few seconds. She suddenly collapsed. And just in time, too. My bots in the streets noticed more Empire members coming. Abyssal re-formed. It was time to stop and evacuate.

"**GGGOOOOO. BAAAAAACCKKKKKUUUUP**," I had him say.

"We have to go! Empire reinforcements are on the way!" Tattletale translated for her team.

The Undersiders, to their credit, absolutely did not try to question the deep, booming voice. All of them quickly left the building holding as many dogs, kennels, and cash as they could carry. I had Abyssal dissolve before returning to me, although I left the bots inside the Empire capes' bloodstream, hanging out harmlessly in the spleen. Never knew when it would come in handy.

* * *

On one hand, the Empire wasn't chasing me specifically.

On the other, there were a _lot_ of Empire goons wandering around. Even being able to see several blocks around and ahead of me didn't help if I had no place to run.

Word spread quickly. Hookwolf was known to be captured, and a few Empire bases were hit tonight. Empire reinforcements were wandering the area, while the ABB smelled blood in the water. That meant fighting. And I needed to get away.

I decided not to head towards my workshop much until things cooled down. Just in case someone managed to follow me. However, I wanted the bulk of my high-quality bots nearby, just in case, enough to keep Abyssal nearby and ready to form anywhere, ready to protect me, yet not visible so hopefully nobody associated me with him.

I needed to get home quick, and I tried my best to use my extended senses to navigate through the streets while remaining hidden. I heard gunshots, often from outside my vision range, and it scared me. I reinforced the layers of bots directly covering me just to be sure, because stray bullets could certainly travel further than my own range.

What was worse than not being able to see the firefights? Being able to see the firefights. Some of my bots were getting a close-up view of the action, which meant the fighting was getting closer and closer to _me_.

Kaiser was out in the streets, fighting Oni Lee, perilously close to where I was. Kaiser didn't seem to care about the teleporter's attempts at knifing him, and even mostly ignored the grenades with the help of impromptu steel shields.

If I hung out here any longer, me and my bots were merely one of many collateral casualties. The Undersiders were long gone. I wished I had the speed and endurance of Bitch's demon dogs, but I would have to hoof it by my own strength. Augumented slightly with my bots.

The fighting, the explosions, and the collateral damage were starting some fires. If I left my bots in the area, they would burn. Such was one of the dangers of building them primarily out of carbon. I could clump them together, either as Abyssal or another shape, to evacuate them quickly. But that might have attracted someone's attention, leading them back to me. Or I could sacrifice a large portion of my bots as the town burned, but nobody would be the wiser.

I had to chose the latter. I was part of New Wave, after all. My public persona was more important; Abyssal could be rebuilt. I took as many bots as I could and evacuated them from the neighbourhood while I ran, hopefully without attracting attention. Even though I was certain nobody was aiming for me, I still ducked reflexively each time I heard another gunshot, crash, or roar. Abyssal would be "sleeping" at home with me tonight like a giant invisible teddy bear.


	18. Interlude 4: The Real Heroes

Interlude: The Real Heroes

"What's the holdup, Jimmy?" Pat asked.

It was hard to hear clearly though all the gear, but Jimmy answered him. "Waiting for the area to clear. Still too dangerous."

Another loud bang. Could have been a gunshot, a tire popping, a gas line exploding, a grenade... who knows. Nearly the whole damn block was on fire. All they could do was watch as the fire raged on. They had their gear on, fire engine at the ready, and nothing they could do until the police managed to clear the area. They knew there could have been innocent victims trapped in there. Every second counted. The longer they took, the harder it would be to both fight the fire and the lower the chances of a successful rescue.

They watched as the fire continued to grow, and grow. Occasionally there was another few bangs and explosions. Dread shifted to frustration. What would have been a difficult fire to put out was now impossible. Instead of a potential rescue, they would only be able to contain and condemn. There was always the chance someone was caught inside, but they weren't allowed in yet.

They could only wait while others risked their lives.

* * *

"PRT's given the go-ahead. All known capes accounted for. It's time for us to move in." Richie readied his pistol and nodded to his partner. The PRT and Protectorate may be concentrating on the capes, but he reported the Empire still had armed members. Sure, capes still took up all the headlines even thirty years after they first appeared, but normal guys with guns were just as dangerous, if not more so.

And it was the job of Richie's team to take them out.

The battering ram swung hard and smashed through the door lock quickly. A flashbang flew through the small gap, just like in training.

_Thunk. Thunk. BANG._

The team rushed in, following the sounds of confused and pained shouts.

Even blinded and deafened, the nazis were holding on to their guns. Too dangerous. They were shot down quickly, and unfortunately, some of them pulled the trigger in shock. Bullets went wild, and unfortunately, one of them got a lucky hit. Thank god for body armour.

"Clear!" he shouted.

"Clear!" came a response.

"Man down!" came another. Fuck.

They gathered around protectively to assess their downed comrade. Frank. He had been grazed in the shoulder, just missing his body armour. Though it wasn't critical, it was bleeding badly, and they needed to evacuate him. "Joe, Emil, get him to the medics. The rest of us, we can keep sweeping."

They kept pushing through the building. It was mostly empty, but from the very last room, a flaming bottle flew at them from behind a counter. They managed to dodge it, but naturally, that didn't mean much. It smashed against the wall behind them. Its flammible contents splashed everywhere, and the flames spread immediately. The room was quickly engulfed in fire, and it even caught one of them in the blaze.

"Evac, evac!"

They had to back out quickly; Richie's leg was already on fire. He ducked out around the corner into cover, then tried to pat and smother the flames. They were several men down now; they didn't have enough to even arrest everyone if they continued. They were on a short timer now, too.

Smoke filled the air, cutting both visibility and putting them at risk. The perp was out of sight. He probably escaped through the back door, which was now blocked off by the spreading flames. They had to abort the operation with, but they'd managed to clear at least three-quarters of the building and taken down a few gangsters.

* * *

"The police team's out, so we're moving in!" Jimmy shouted to his crew. They'd been watching from a distance, and once they saw the men hauling both the injured and handcuffed out the building, they went in. Through the windows, they could see flames of a flickering fire; one that hadn't been there before. The building was supposed to be a weapons storehouse; that could mean anything from ammunition to grenades to gasoline.

Not his favourite fire to fight, but at least they had trained for things like this. Gas stations, greasy kitchens, paper mills, oil change shops – they all caught fire. There was always the chance of random accelerants existing in any building they had to enter. They had trained for this; and at least they got some warning this time. The fire was already blazing, but they had been itching to get started. His team had the fire engine hooked up to they hydrant in record time, and they were spraying down the building.

While the police had given the building a once-over, they didn't have time to double check. The fire was growing; if they didn't act soon the entire city block would be lost. They rushed in to contain it as quickly as they could. Some doors had been bashed open already by the police, which was convenient. No need for the fire axe. Still, they followed procedure, going from room to room to search for any potential victims the police may have missed.

The building was a mess; as they tended to be when they were taken by the gangs. Either abandoned or taken by force; they were not treated with any respect or care. Fire spread even more quickly through buildings like this.

"Stairs!" The warning came not a second too soon as the one in the lead realized the stairs were far too weak to hold all of them and their equipment, after being damaged by age, fire, and the recent police raid. Two of them backed off quickly enough, but the rotting wood creaked and split, causing Frankie to fall through.

He slammed into the floor below, landing right on his oxygen canister. Thankfully, those were built tough, and it didn't explode – though it certainly didn't help his back. "Frankie! You okay!"

"I'll live!" he shouted back.

They helped him up, and urged him to get out of the building. He wouldn't be carrying a victim out of there when he could barely hold his own equipment. The rest of them had to continue through the building, ever more wary of the dangers.

"Die you fuckin pigs!"

A closet door in front of them burst open. Before anyone could realize what was happening, a man had jumped out and fired a weapon. They had been expecting live people, panicking people even, but not hostile and murderous ones.

"Oh shit, you aren't –" he managed to say before another firefighter managed to slam him into the wall.

"Fuck, Jake got shot! We need the medics!"

* * *

Treating a wound in a moving vehicle was hard enough, treating it while trying to remove fifty pounds of gear from a firefighter was outright ridiculous.

"Hey, Sandra, would you mind keeping the ambulance steady?" Fred shouted. It was a joke, of course; they'd been through these situations all too often.

"Sure, just let me install a cow-catcher and plow through traffic," she shouted back, once again swerving into the oncoming lane to avoid traffic. At least, at this time of night, there weren't as many cars on the road, but some had been blocked off by the police or PRT.

"How're you holding up, Mr. Henderson?" Fred asked as he struggled to cut through the thick fireproof coat.

"Call me Jake, damnit. And fuck, it's as bad as when I broke my arm," he replied.

"Well, that's probably because your arm's broken," Fred said. "They'll need to do an X-Ray to confirm it, but I'm guessing the bullet might have hit the bone."

The ambulance rushed to the hospital, only to find another two ambulances waiting. Gunshot wounds, each of them. The entrance to the emergency room was crowded; there were stretchers waiting outside the door.

Nurses and doctors were rushing to and fro, trying to get as many patients assessed and treated as they could. Panacea wasn't here today, and neither was Eunoia. They knew that the capes worked on a volunteer basis; they had no obligation to work and the staff should have had no expectation of them, either.

On some days, the work was easy; the capes could simply fix patients almost as fast as they could be admitted. And sometimes, it was flooded with injuries from gang fights while the capes were busy with their own responsibilities.

Just another day in Brockton Bay.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Man, busy week. Short chapter for now but the next update should be quicker.


	19. Explosion 1

Explosion 1

One thing I had learned from the cape fight alongside the Undersiders - I needed to find a way to control my bots better. I needed to be able to extend my range, but I'd just lost my primary manufacturing facility. If I didn't have to actually visit my workshop to save my bots, I could have evacuated them hours earlier. If I could have controlled Abyssal from across town, I would have been able to fight crime from the safety of my bedroom. But try as I might, no matter how much I practiced, my range was fixed. Apparently it wasn't like a muscle; working it out did nothing to improve it.

I wasn't sure if I could actually boost my range, but I figured the only way to do it would be to mimic my own power. Maybe like a booster signal? I still had no idea how I actually controlled my bots; they just _worked_. Tinker bullshit, as usual. The studies I was doing with Dr. Akagi was almost definitively pointing to the fact that powers (or, at least, the _control_ of powers) stemmed from the brain structures, and therefore if I were to do anything then I'd have to study my own brain even more. There were not many volunteers beyond New Wave, unfortunately. Turns out capes were hesitant to have their brains scanned about as much as they were reluctant to unmask. Who knew?

Despite the small sample size, Dr. Akagi and I still had plenty to work with. If we couldn't get more volunteers, then we would have to just find a way to get more information from the volunteers we had. Namely me.

That, of course, meant I had to design better bots. Ones that could detect brain activity to even higher detail. That would require changing both their function and their shape, but without losing any of the functions that my current designs were capable of.

Incidentally, since I had lost a good chunk of my bots from the fires, it was the perfect time to rebuild almost-from-scratch. Not that I had much else to do – go to the hospital, study at home, rinse and repeat. In the meantime, I'd be building more bots.

I didn't do much more than that because it wasn't exactly safe to stay outside. I watched the news and kept in contact with Lady Photon for updates on the gang war. I wasn't sure if the Empire was focused more on recapturing territory from the ABB now that Lung was in PRT custody, or if they would attack the PRT themselves to get two of their deadlier capes back. Either way, the fighting wasn't dying down.

Lisa, meanwhile, still kept her promise of providing me more raw materials from wherever she got them. However, this time, it came with an extra note to meet up. I decided to oblige her, since I'd be having a hell of a time trying to rebuild my bot reserves without her help.

* * *

"Abyssal was even more impressive than I thought he would be," Lisa said.

"Um... thanks?" I replied.

"I think he's exactly what I need against Coil. How soon do you think you can have him up and running again?" Lisa asked.

Ah. That's where she was going with this. "If it's just the mass, only a few days as long as you keep supplying me. But... well, I'm not sure if I'm ready to take him on."

"It's not any worse than... oh. Right. That night was pretty tough for you, huh?" she realized.

"Yeah, like, I could barely keep up with those dogs. Doesn't Coil have mercenaries? With cars? And guns?" I pointed out. "I'd rather be, I dunno, on the opposite side of the city when I'm fighting him."

"You can do that?" Lisa asked, her eyes bugging out. Then she narrowed them again. "No. Darn."

I shrugged. "I've tried practicing, focusing as much as I can, but I seem to have a hard limit on range," I told her. "And, well, if I'm going to fight Coil, and all his mercenaries, me being two blocks away _at most_ is still a bit more of a risk than I'm willing to take. I'm sorry, Lisa. I don't think I'm going to be the solution to your problems."

"Well, you're not a _panacea_," Lisa said with an annoyed frown. "But don't sell yourself short. Let me think."

I gave her a minute.

"That coat. It's made of bots," she pointed out.

"Yeah?" It was kind of obvious for her, especially after she'd seen me do it before. I liked having bots on hand. And my clothes could self-repair and self-clean. And they always fit perfectly.

"And, meanwhile, you're building bots _right now_." She pointed down to the ground, where my bots were at work in the sewers.

"Yeah?" It had been her suggestion, after all.

"And how much concentration does that take you?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Well, the first time around, I have to really focus, but after I've got it once, it's not hard. I just order my bots to do the thing, repeat it a few trillion times, and they get to work."

"And you know what they're doing in case something interrupts them."

I nodded.

"You're keeping a lookout in a two-block radius to make sure there aren't any eavesdroppers _right now_. While doing all of... _that_,"she confirmed, waving her hands vaguely at both my clothes and the sewers.

"Yep."

"So let me get this straight. Your power automatically organizes all that information - which is continuously shifting, by the way - into a coherent image in your mind," Lisa said as she took a sip of her coffee. "They do this automatically, and you can do something once, and repeating it to near-infinity doesn't matter to you. No difference in effort. You can see what they see, hear what they hear, feel what they feel."

When she put it that way, it did seem kind of amazing. I could easily see what Abyssal saw when he was walking around. I didn't quite realize how weird it was, because seeing things while walking around was normal to me. I just... forgot I wasn't seeing through his eyes, I was seeing through every bot on his exterior surface. The three-sixty degree view was easier to get used to than I realized.

"Yeah, I never really thought about it, but..."

"The seeing? You're not interpreting light the same way human eyes do it. And hearing? Your bots don't have ears. Billions of them vibrate from the air pressure, none of them individually are processing sound, and yet your brain just... takes all that information and uses it to give you something coherent to listen to."

"Okay, where are you going with this?"

"You can see, hear, and feel with your bots even though they themselves don't exactly see, hear, or feel. Have you tried using your bots to think?" she asked.

"My bots don't think," I told her.

"Not yet. But they could, couldn't they?" she pointed out.

"I... wait, maybe... hmmm..."

"You've been studying brains for how long? You could make a bot that mimics a neuron. Link them up together and I'm guessing your bullshit power will make them work somehow," Lisa explained matter-of-factly, as if "bullshit" was certain.

"Okay, first off, I've only been studying neurology for a month. Secondly, my powers aren't exactly as bullshit as you think. At least, not as bullshit as other Tinkers. I don't even know how to make a bot that acts like a neuron." Still... the idea had merit. I was already in the process of redesigning my bots for higher accuracy and detail in research.

"That's not too hard. It's pretty similar to how you make those perfect diamonds for your current bots, except you incorporate silicon and a few other things," she explained. "I can recommend you a few computer engineering textbooks on that later."

"Thanks," I told her. I was honestly seeing her as more of a friend than an ally. And I knew that people were quick to declare people villains by association, but I didn't want to give up on her. Maybe she would be forced to work with Coil longer than she wanted to, but I could rebuild quickly, get the ball rolling faster now.

"Bitch wants to thank you for helping save the dogs," she said. "And you lost your main secret storage room, didn't you?"

"She does?" I asked. Huh. That girl didn't seem like the type who would thank anyone. Given her attitude, I didn't think the word was even in her vocabulary.

"She didn't say it exactly, but when you work with her enough, you figure out what she's getting at. Look, we still owe you. We Undersiders pay our debts. We'll find you a nice, safe location for you to build, and keep the raw materials incoming. Help protect stop the gang fighting from coming anywhere near your home. Or the hospital. Or the dockworker's building. Sound good?"

"I really shouldn't be seen associating with you guys," I said. "I'm glad you're not hitting legitimate businesses for now, but like I said before..."

Lisa held up a hand and shook her head. "We don't have to meet in costume. We'll do our own patrols, keep it discreet. We want to give you more breathing room, so you don't need to worry, okay?"

Weighing my options, I decided that it was probably better to take her offer. Finding the original hidden backroom was hard enough. If they could find a better place for me, I think it was worth having them know where my manufacturing base was.

Unlike other Tinkers, I didn't have tons of prototypes and plans and tools to hide. I just had bots; they manufactured themselves. The Undersiders didn't have a Tinker on their team and they probably weren't interested in trying to steal my tech anyway.

In fact, if I didn't have to carry bags of charcoal to the building myself, there was even less of a chance that people would associate me with that location. All I had to do was walk within a few blocks of the building each day to take direct control of my bots, otherwise I would just leave them to manufacture themselves.

"Alright. Let me know where it'll be. I'll mostly need charcoal or other cheap sources of carbon," I told her.

"Oh, and for the new thinky-bots you'll be building," she said, smirking. "I'll tell you which books to pick up from the library."

Even though I was soon building bots to give me more brainpower, I had no doubt that Lisa would still make it known that she was the smartest one around.

* * *

I fell into routine once again while the Undersiders helped me find a new base. Sure, working at the hospital did give me plenty to do, although at this point there were only so many patients I could help. It wasn't really my fault, either; the neurologists themselves could only perform so many surgeries, and the researchers could only find so many test subjects. Without having to go to school, I spent most of my time in between reading the neurology books in the hospital's library, or the computer science textbooks that Lisa had recommended to me at home. I still didn't spend much time on the streets; working at the hospital reminded me enough of what was still going on out there.

While I was at home, I mainly spent the time designing and further refining my bots. The great thing was that I had enough bots now to manufacture over a thousand different variants at a time. Though it still took hours to make each one individually, it meant that every few hours a day I could quickly experiment to find out what worked best, and refine the next batch based on the best variant of the thousand.

While working in the cellar at home, I heard a knock on the door. "I'll get it!" I shouted. I needed to move a bit before I ended up fusing my butt to the chair. I had already seen from my bots monitoring the house outside that there was a well-dressed man who had pulled up to the house in a very shiny, new BMW. I was really curious as to what he wanted from us. Just in case he was hostile, I had better protection than Dad.

When I opened the door, the man smiled at me and immediately gave me a business card. "Hello, you must be Taylor Hebert, also known as Eunoia. Is that correct?"

"Yes," I confirmed. I took a quick glance at the card. Bryson & O'Malley, Personal Injury Lawyers. "What's this about?"

"Miss Hebert, I'm Mr. Bryson. I recently learned about the injustice you suffered early January at Winslow High school. I would like to represent you, pro bono, to ensure that justice is served and you are awarded the rightful compensation for your suffering."

Dad walked up behind me. "I don't hear about many lawyers who go door-to-door looking for work."

Mr. Bryson's smile didn't drop. "Well, this is definitely a special case. You're such a high-profile client, needing representation against such powerful organizations, I believe it is better to be proactive with such things." His smile dropped. "To be frank with you, I have a daughter who is about to enter middle school. When it was brought to my attention how poorly a school handled a clear-cut case of bullying, I fear for my own daughter's well-being. I do want the school board to change their policies, and your case will have the public backing to ensure it will happen."

"So you want us to sue them?"

The lawyer nodded solemnly. "Unfortunately, there are many people who only speak one language: money. I suspect the school board won't change its policies unless it hits their bottom line."

"I'm not sure if we want to go through this," dad said. "We don't need the money. We just want to get on with our lives."

Mr. Bryson didn't express any dismay when Dad said we didn't need the money. I'm sure he noticed Dad's old truck and the flaky paint on our house. Even looking into our doorway he could probably notice the relatively sparse house. "Mr. Hebert, I know you're an honest, hardworking man. You've done your best for the Dockworkers. But think about it this way. Do you want anyone else to suffer as Taylor did? The school hasn't learned any lesson and their policies haven't changed. All the staff that enabled the bullying are still working there. You've suffered and they've gotten off scot-free. No justice will be done without a lawsuit and all the facts have been made public. If there's anything I think we can both agree on, is that we both value justice. Isn't that right?"

Dad looked at me. I think he knew that this would be my call in the end. True, I wasn't hurting for money. I didn't even need to sell diamonds yet. But Emma and Madison were getting out of it with their hands clean. Sophia was only caught because of her own massive screw-up, not for what she did to me before. Principal Blackwell was practically my fourth bully and she was coming out smelling like roses. Yeah, I wanted this to happen.

"Yes, I think a lawsuit might be a good idea," I said. "But I'll have to consult with my teammates first..."

* * *

"Thank you for meeting with me again," Mr. Bryson said, shaking my hand. He turned to Mrs. Dallon. "And it's good seeing you again, Carol."

"James." Mrs. Dallon just nodded to the other lawyer. I supposed they must have collaborated together before - personal injury lawyers and criminal prosecutors probably tended to have some overlaps in terms of cases, but she didn't seem very friendly with him. Just strictly professional.

"I called for this meeting because Taylor Hebert here, otherwise known as Eunoia, is considering filing a lawsuit against Winslow High School, otherwise known as School District 204. Currently, investigations have revealed that the Protectorate is involved in the case. Obviously, this will be very public, and given her membership of New Wave, we agreed that we should consult with you before moving forward. However, the events of this case happened before she joined New Wave, and we don't foresee it involving New Wave in any way."

"Aside from our reputation by association," Mrs. Dallon said.

Her sister, Mrs. Pelham, crossed her arms. "What exactly are you charging them with?"

"Well, Taylor, do you remember when that bully of yours broke into your house?"

"You mean Shadow Stalker?"

He nodded. "Nothing came of that case, did it? Did the police ever contact you again?"

I shook my head.

"Naturally. They take over investigations involving parahumans, and then merely buried the case. They don't want bad publicity, you see. After all, it wouldn't look very good if it turns out that one of their so-called 'heroes' is up for assault, uttering threats, bullying, illegal use of powers. At first, I thought it was merely a case of the school's negligence or obstruction of justice, for trying to protect one of their track stars. But when one of my... contacts at the police department told me about _yet another_ case that was quashed by the Protectorate, well, I knew we had something even bigger on our hands. The School Board will be charged with neglect, corruption, failure to report, child abuse, and possibly obstruction of justice. The Protectorate may be hit with obstruction of justice and corruption if they deliberately destroyed evidence of the fact."

"Those are pretty heavy charges," Mrs. Pelham noted.

"They are pretty serious crimes," Mr. Bryson said, looking at me and Dad.

"That's a lot... do you think we can actually get them for all of that?" I asked.

Mr. Bryson shook his head. "Unfortunately, the strategy tends to be throwing everything at them and finding one that sticks. It would still be a victory if we can catch them on half of it."

I looked to Mrs. Dallon. She gave a nod in confirmation, but with a grim frown.

"Personally, I don't want to simply let people who hurt my daughter get away with it," Dad said.

"It's going to be one hell of a case. I don't like it. The press is going to drag everyone's names through the mud, including ours," Mrs. Dallon said. "One thing we've learned about public opinion, it really doesn't matter if you have the high ground, morally or legally. People will follow the word of rumour and popularity."

"So, just like high school again," I could help myself from muttering.

Mr. Bryson put a hand on my shoulder. "This _will_ be a struggle. I wanted to make this clear with you, and those close to you, before we went ahead. I know you suffered a horrific case of bullying, and you want justice. But Carol's right. The defendants will be ruthless in trying to demonstrate you don't deserve anything, that you brought all the misfortune upon yourself. They will take your bullies at their word and make _them _seem like the victims. The public will callous in their judgment. The press will be voracious in trying to dig up any nasty rumour they can get their hands on."

"I know the type. They hounded the Docks for weeks during the barricade," dad grumbled.

Mrs. Dallon turned to her sister. "Do you think we can afford to let this proceed?"

"I don't see how you can afford it not to," Mr. Bryson said before Mrs. Pelham could respond.

"What do you mean?" the leader of New Wave asked. "We don't want to be enemies of the Protectorate. There aren't enough heroes as it is. There's too much of a chance that people will turn against New Wave."

Mr. Bryson smiled as if he'd already won. "Both the School Board and the Protectorate are being absolutely irresponsible and using their authority to avoid justice. In fact, they covered up crimes by hiding behind secret identities, using the cape identity to excuse the civilian crimes, and using the civilian crimes to wash their hands of the cape reputation. If there was ever a time when New Wave's philosophy was proven to be superior, this is it."

Mrs. Pelham mused over his argument for a minute before turning to me. "Taylor, this is ultimately your decision. But if you don't mind, I'd like to know about the details of this case before you file anything."

I agreed. I didn't want to spring any surprises on them. I let them know about all the bullying, about Emma's betrayal, Sophia's gang, and the teachers' inaction. I also let them know, in detail about when Sophia attacked me in my house, which actually elicited gasps from the two women.

By the end of it I was feeling angered and anxious to tears all over again. I'd become much more detached from that part of my life, with Tinkering and healing and crimefighting keeping my attention. At least, I think Mrs. Pelham was on board with the idea. I knew I wasn't alone this time. Mrs. Dallon still seemed to have her doubts.

"I have just one question, James," Mrs. Dallon said, narrowing her eyes. "I've never known you to take on a case pro bono. Why now? Why this case?" I remembered the sob story about his own daughter the first time he met us, but I didn't fully believe him. Not that I thought he was an outright liar, but I was sure the motivations were way more self-serving than he had portrayed to me and dad. Dad was more used to hard-working blue-collar folk, so I think he was more forgiving and empathetic to that kind of story.

"It's quite simple. I was given a tip from a friend of mine, Detective Elizabeth Salle. Ever work with her?"

He received a nod in reply.

"Well, it turns out that she was working on a case. Obvious break-and-enter. Well, no breaking, because it turned out the perp was using powers." His smirk and glance towards me was all that was needed to tell it had all centered on me. "Unfortunately, even with all the evidence, very little was done. Too little, too late. All investigation by the police was shut down and the PRT took over. They hushed it up as a single case, completely ignoring the past history between the criminal and the victim."

"So you're seeing a big payout," Mrs. Dallon said flatly.

"Winslow High, the PRT and its Protectorate members, the Barnes family, and two other minors can easily be named in this lawsuit. I'm thinking, say, forty-five percent of a potentially multi-million dollar lawsuit with fairly strong evidence against them. Does that sound reasonable?" He smiled at me.

I narrowed my eyes at him. "So that sob story about your daughter – "

"Is still absolutely true," he said. "Sometimes, profits and justice _do_ happen to align."

"I just want to say that I'm not in it for the money. I just got a new job with a construction company that agreed to hire most of the Dockworkers, too. We'll be doing fine even without the lawsuit. So just go with your gut, Taylor," Dad told me.

"Yeah, and I can still manufacture diamonds at any time," I shrugged.

Bryson fit the greedy lawyer stereotype well enough. But dad's news surprised me. Was that why he was out of the house and looking even more exhausted lately? Then again I had been so busy I didn't have much time to talk to him either. "You know what, I think we'll go ahead." It really wasn't the money I needed. I just wanted something to _change_. "Winslow isn't going to get fixed until _someone_ sues their asses off."

Mrs. Dallon held her hand out to stop us from shaking hands. "I want to go over all the details before you shake or sign anything, got it?"

Mr. Bryson laughed. "Carol, I'm not your enemy here. What's good for me is good for you, this time."

I was just going to pretend that didn't sound ominous.

* * *

On the slightly-less legal side of things, the Undersiders had handed me a new base and new materials. It was little more than a storage shed, but it was more than what I needed anyway. Tattletale assured me the building was in legal limbo for quite a while, as the original owners may have been... arrested for something or were otherwise preoccupied for a long time. With my bot design greatly improved and finalized, I started cranking them out like crazy. Most of the other Undersiders never went to the building. Just Bitch. She occasionally brought bags of charcoal or other materials to feed my manufacturing while she walked her dogs. Of course, they still dropped off additional materials elsewhere, when I continued building at home or at the hospital.

While not as convenient as my original location, it at least had a coffee shop nearby. When I wasn't at the hospital, I tended to just bring a book and sit there reading, controlling the bots from my maximum range. I didn't need to step inside to see what was going on.

With all the prototyping and refinement I had done at home, I started making neuro-bots right away. I focused on them first; I wasn't in a huge hurry to re-make the masses of low-quality bots that spread across the streets until the gang war died down. I wanted enough of them to see if Lisa's theory proved true.

At first, I was sitting in the cafe, pretending to read my book, while concentrating on the bots inside my own brain, like I had done so many times before. I copied them as best I could so that my bots mimicked every cell and connection between them. With my newly refined design, I was able to do it. It took all my concentration, though. I basically stopped producing new bots, stopped watching the neighbourhood, stopped reading. I would have forgotten to breathe if it wasn't automatic. Every last bit of my brainpower went to, well, copy my own brain while it thought. About itself thinking. About itself.

It was extremely slow going at first. I didn't feel any results for a while, until long after my tea had gone cold. Unlike simply reading the blood vessels in brain for Dr. Kardon's research, or mapping the location of the neurons for Dr. Akagi, making them actually _do something_ was far more work. The number of neurons and their positions weren't all that impressive really; it was the number of connections between each. And there were a lot. Each neuron had thousands of connections to other neurons, so mapping the actual connections was likewise that much more complicated. And then I had to match the actual timing and patterns that the neurons fired, making sure the bots mimicked the "settings" correctly – that they spat out the right signal based on what they received.

I don't think anyone else would have volunteered for this kind of extreme-deep-dive into their brains, so I really was going to have to push the boundaries entirely on my own with this one. I worked as long as I could at the coffee shop until the staff started looking at me funny, so I packed up and went home. I let my spare bots carry my half-finished brain model through the sewers until I got near my house, when I was certain nobody was watching me.

The walk home was a bit of a break, but I was so excited to keep working on it that I flopped on the couch, and concentrated on building my brain model. I put the model in the basement, which was a little safer than the sewers nearby. I worked until dinner, and then went straight back to it.

"Taylor, aren't you going to bed? You look like a zombie," Dad said to me, breaking my concentration once more.

"Uh, yeah. Sure, dad," I said, feeling a little annoyed at having to pause my brain-copying again while I walked upstairs.

Except my concentration hadn't been broken. In fact, I realized I was now copying a bit of my own annoyance from the emotion centers of my brain into my model, as well as the motor cortex activity where my legs were moving. Huh. Wait, my model brain was almost complete. Just a few finishing touches were needed to round off the whole thing.

_I should totally build more of these_, I thought to myself.

Wait. Was I thinking to myself? I'd talked to myself in my own head a lot. It tended to happen when you had absolutely zero friends at school. And this voice... it was mine, but it wasn't from inside my own head. I think.

_Yeah, that's really weird,_ I agreed with myself.

I was officially freaked out a little. I flopped down on to my bed, and tried to stare through the floor into the basement, where my model brain was. It couldn't be.

_What couldn't be? A perfect replica of your brain perfectly replicating your brain?_ I taunted myself.

Yeah, I had to agree, that was pretty obvious.

_Of course I agree, I thought of it_.

I glared vaguely in the direction where copy of my brain sat, hoping that I would get the idea of how much I disapproved of me sassing myself. Then I realized how stupid I was being and desperately tried to think of nothing at all. I utterly failed.

_Maybe we should just concentrate on work or something,_ I thought.

_Yeah, I agree_, I thought.

_Don't we always._

* * *

**Author's Note**: You know, I recall the fandom occasionally mention the whole "relay bug" thing being underused (I still haven't reached that part in the canon story). Definitely seemed like wasted potential, and would have been a major force multiplier.


	20. Explosion 2

Explosion 2

The first thing I did, since I wasn't able to sleep after that, was to sneak out of the house. I wondered if my new brain could "support" itself. After all, I had my normal brain, and my powers that went with it. As far as any research had found, powers – or, the control of powers, at least – originated from the Corona Pollentia and Gemma. Brain structures which had been copied in my duplicate brain, and were active right now. My copy was only held together by my powers. Nobody had ever manage to perfectly duplicate powers, aside from Trumps. Biotinkers, maybe, but there was a severe lack of heroic biotinkers who did those kinds of experiments, so verified scientific data was quite lacking.

So it was up to me to see how this would work.

_You ready for this, me?_ I asked myself.

_Better to know now than get surprised later, right? Promise you'll remake me if it doesn't work?_

_Yeah._ I wasn't exactly a fan of dying, after all. And my brain-clone obviously had the same opinion on whatever this would be called – not exactly suicide, but definitely not sleep, if the brain construct just collapsed in on itself.

I walked away from my house, until I could feel like I was nearing the edge of my control. Or, at least, it should have been. I knew this location pretty well; every time I walked to the hospital, this was where I could feel a humongous chunk of bots disappear from my control – the reserves I held in the basement. Where my brain-clone was right now.

But I wasn't nearing my range limits. In fact, not only could I feel my entire house, I could sense the bots in my neighbours' lawns on the opposite side. And a few houses down from that, too. In fact, my entire control range when I normally slept at home was still under control.

_Are you doing that?_ I asked myself.

_I guess so?_ I responded.

Fundamentally, everything still felt like it was under my control, with no interruption. Not like I had to tell my second brain what to do, and have her relay the orders. It was all fluid and smooth. I should take note of that.

_You'd better, in case I disappear._

Right. Here goes. I took a few extra steps, when I knew my home would normally be out of range.

My control of the entire neighbourhood behind me simply vanished.

Damn.

I quickly retraced my steps so that my house was back under my control, and I immediately concentrated on the cellar where my bots were.

_Hey, are you there?_ I thought.

No response. The brain had collapsed into a pile of bots. Ugh. Time to rebuild.

* * *

"This is amazing, Eunoia." Dr. Akagi and Dr. Kardon watched the brain I had built out of nanobots, now actively flashing to show them how every individual neuron was firing, in real time. Both of them weren't blinking, staring at the thing for minutes without moving. I was almost worried I had Mastered them or something. "You should be very proud of yourself."

_Yeah. Proud. Not having a surreal journey of self-discovery,_ I thought. I was afraid to let the brain out of my range again. I had taken her to the hospital incorporated into my costume. For once, I was very thankful of Tattletale's suggestions of additional "storage space." Good thing was that my clone brain could be smaller than a real brain; most of the human brain wasn't actually neurons. The majority were actually support cells, ones that did cleaning and maintenance and all that. Without those, since my bots didn't need it, I managed to fit a brain into my costume's boob padding.

I officially had the smartest breasts in the world. A far better thing to be famous for than _biggest_.

Of course, when I brought me out to show the doctors, I had recreated a _third_ one from scratch, and made it normal-sized. And obviously didn't tell them the full extent of my capabilities. It went much faster than before – obviously, having practice helped, much like forming my clothes or Abyssal. But having two additional brains on hand helping me definitely sped up the process.

I just wasn't sure what I would do at the end of the day. Would they ask to keep the copy? Would I have to dismantle her?

_I mean, I'm still me, so really it's not murder. I'll still be alive after that so even that doesn't count._

_Yeah, but I'm still killing a sentient being._

_ It's not so much killing as it is destroying half of your brain._

_ That's not something I want to do either._

_ Well, if you build ten of them, even if one dies then it's technically only one-tenth of your brain that's dying._

_ That's technically better, but fundamentally it's still weird,_ I thought. I still had my doubts, because there was also the issue that, having more brains was multiplying the problem as much as the solution.

Then again, if I spent most of my time between my house and the hospital, I just needed enough of those brains to lay a path between them, and I would have an unbroken chain of control. From there, I could spread them further out. That would require a _major_ ramp-up in production and supplies, and I didn't know if Lisa could actually supply me with that much more without attracting unwanted attention.

_You talk to the doctors, we'll concentrate on the planning_, Brain two said to me. Or was that Brain three?

"We'd love to be able to use this to help our research in some way," Dr. Akagi was saying. "It could revolutionize the field of neurology."

I was still too consumed by my minor existential crisis to feel proud of her declaration. I was sensing a huge "but..." behind that, though.

"But you know how slowly the approval process can work."

I nodded.

"Don't give it up, though. I'll make sure I'll get the approvals started. My god, this could earn us a Nobel Prize..." Dr. Kardon said. Dr. Akagi nodded beside her.

"Keep this up, and maybe build more of them if you can. The usefulness of this can't be understated. Do you know how long-"

The hospital's overhead speakers suddenly blared. "Code Orange. Repeat. Code orange."

I turned to the doctors. "What does code orange mean?" I asked.

"Mass casualties. Maybe a plane crash, or bridge collapse or something," Dr. Kardon told me. "You've been working with some of the emergency doctors for stroke and head trauma procedures, right? You should head down to the ER, see if they need you."

"Uh, right." As I ran down the hall, I really had to wonder what constituted mass casualties. Brockton Bay was a place that saw dozens of people injured in gang-related crimes on a daily basis. I mean, I'd seen twenty people brought to the hospital all at once as a result of the larger gang fights, and even _that_ didn't warrant a code. What was going on that was even worse today?

Even as I waited for the damn elevator, I was watching the streets with my bots. Multiple ambulances were arriving, crowding up the hospital's driveway. Meanwhile, regular cars were arriving at the same pace, with bloody people climbing out to stagger through the entrance. I got to the ER only a few minutes later, and already there was a lineup of stretchers and injured stretching from the admitting desk all the way outside. Panacea was already there, hard at work.

"Eunoia! I can use your help here!"

I always thought she could heal everything better than I could, but I wasn't going to turn down the chance at working side-by-side with her. Then again, I was still pretty inexperienced with emergency situations; most of my patients had been long-term and stable. And almost entirely brain issues, not bleeding out with missing limbs. The worst emergency was usually a stroke, easy for my powers to deal with and I had doctors directing me. This felt like my first day at the hospital all over again.

"Most of these people have shrapnel in their bodies. It's inorganic. You can pull the shrapnel out of their bodies more easily than I can. It'll make my healing faster."

I understood. I sent my bots into every cut and laceration I could see. I didn't bother killing the bacteria or clotting the blood; Panacea could do that far faster than I could. I just used my bots to pull out the bits of metal and rock embedded in their wounds. As my bots worked, I could see the wounds closing behind them as they crawled out of the body.

Thank goodness I had additional brains today. The pieces of shrapnel were tiny, and he had thousands of bits embedded in his body. The additional concentration I had let me handle all of it at once, working at quadruple the speed I normally could. I definitely needed to make more of the neuro-bots and brains if it drastically improved my skills like this.

Working together, we'd saved this man's life in fifteen seconds.

_You're welcome_, I told myself.

_Less preening, more life-saving!_ I insisted.

"Can I get a bottle of bleach?" I shouted. My bots were coated in blood. Normally I had ten minutes or more in between each patient to get my bots cleaned up, but that definitely wasn't happening tonight. Didn't want to give one patient's disease to another, and there were plenty of patients right now. Ambulances were shuttling people in, minute by minute. If my bots just swam through some bleach, it would quickly clean and sterilize them in seconds.

For now, I could continue using my reserves of clean robots. I was good for another five patients or so.

The work was varied but repetitive. Over and over, I yanked out foreign bodies while Panacea healed. Sometimes we split up and worked on separate patients; I focused on ones with bad head injuries while she worked on a few patients that weren't directly injured by the bombs. There were plenty of people who were injured from car accidents, falling, or being burned.

I wasn't sure how long we healed. The hours blended together, but at some point, we were finally catching up. The waiting area, which had been turned into a triage center, was still jam packed, but the number was dropping instead of rising.

The ER was completely out of beds, and even chairs at this point. We started to move into the triage area to treat the patients there directly. The waiting area had a TV at least, and everyone was watching the news.

There was a figure in a gas mask on TV.

"...now you know. We are the power in this city! Don't you dare think that, without Lung, the ABB is vulnerable. You cannot stop us. You cannot hold us. You will release Lung, or suffer my wrath." The video cut out and went back to the anchorman.

"Again, that was the ultimatum sent to us two hours ago by the villain Bakuda, representing the ABB gang. Moving to live coverage outside the Protectorate, it appears that the ferry terminals to the Protectorate Headquarters have been taken over by gang members..."

The image on screen, shot from a news helicopter, now showed a huge mob of people carrying guns standing around on shore. The Rig's shields were up and its turrets were active, but it appeared that they were presently at a stalemate.

Crap. I thought the gang war a few days ago was bad. This was even worse, with even more potential damage and casualties. I wondered where the ABB had managed to recruit so many members.

It was only then that I noticed my phone ringing.

At this point, the patients I was working on were less critical. I figured I could spare a few seconds, in case it was an actual emergency. "Hello?"

_"Tay- Eunoia. Don't need to talk. There's a major villain meeting at Somer's Rock, a bar in the east end of the downtown area. Starts in an hour. Figured you might want to watch."_

Spy on all the villains? That was a good idea. I knew in a situation like this, Panacea was staying at the hospital. I felt bad leaving all the work to her, even if there wasn't anything major happening for now. At the very least, I let her know. I hoped the meeting wouldn't be long.

An hour. That was pretty short notice. I had vaguely heard of Somer's Rock. Some of the seniors at Winslow went there because they were lax on checking ID. I knew I could run there in about fifteen minutes. Though I didn't know how long the meeting would run, and I didn't want to leave Panacea alone with all the work for long. That problem would be solved if I just made more brains, and daisy-chained them to the restaurant.

With the existing brains I already had, and the bots I had in reserve in the sewers... I could do it, without taking too much time.

I worked extra hard alongside Panacea for the next half hour, and we took care of all the critical patients. There were a lot more, but none with injuries that the nurses and normal treatment couldn't handle. "Hey, Panacea? I need to head out for a little bit," I said. "Need to head home and get more of my nanobots. Get some rest, okay? I get the feeling things might get worse before they get better."

"You're right," she sighed. "I think I'll take a nap somewhere in here until the doctors call me again. Be careful out there."

"I will." I gave her a hug just before I left, depositing a few nanobots on her clothes. I just wanted to keep watch on her as I left, to make sure she was actually getting the rest that she promised she was getting.

As I walked away from the hospital, I was glad to see that Panacea was actually heading towards an empty stretcher. The nurses and doctors were grateful to have her nearby and helped prep one for her. I kept monitoring her until she actually climbed into bed. As I walked, I formed another new brain in the sewers while as many spare bots as I could along the street. I moved that one a block further from the hospital; the brain that was sitting on Dr. Akagi's desk could keep watch on the hospital itself for now.

I had to make a detour to the new storehouse, which would provide me with enough of my new, high-quality bots to make it all the way to Somer's Rock, but it would cost me the ability to form Abyssal himself. No matter; I wasn't going to crash the Villain meeting and try to arrest all of them at once.

Still, having all my bots used up as brains wasn't ideal. I needed most of them to manufacture more bots, and on top of that, a bunch more to use as Abyssal. But now more than ever, I needed to watch my back.

On that note, I needed to spy on a whole lot more than just a villain's meeting. I couldn't just let Bakuda run loose. I needed to find her. A tinker's workshop was one of the hardest places to find and break into. Which meant I needed to search every building in the city, every sewer, every trap door and basement. Which meant I needed more bots, more neuro-bots, to cover the city. I was certain I'd never be able to make enough bots to cover the city in time.

I needed to find the optimal balance between them all. Maybe I could make Abyssal out of low-quality junk and garbage on the streets, and use the high-quality stuff that Lisa provided for more brains. I'd figure out what to do after I saw what was going on with the meeting.

* * *

I dropped off one of my pre-formed brains in a hidden spot within two blocks of Somer's Rock, then immediately turned back and headed to the hospital again. I could feel my control remain. I started to get a picture of the interior as my bots swarmed towards Somer's Rock, a dingy little bar hidden in between the business district and the docks.

As I retraced my steps, I kept watch on my entire route back to the hospital. The destruction that Bakuda had wrought with her "warning" detonations were already massive. While on the way to Somer's Rock I was primarily focused on simply building more brains and laying a path all the way there, I was actively keeping watch on the way back with all... ten of my brains now.

With the number of patients that had flooded the ER with severe injuries, I had expected things to be bad. It was actually worse. Bakuda's bombs were exceptionally lethal, not just because of the size of the explosives, but their exotic effects.

I saw buildings that were not only burnt, but even the bricks had been charred black. Whatever flame had struck them, it was no ordinary fire, probably closer to a massive thermite bomb than anything. No survivors. Another had a section turned entirely to glass, causing the building to collapse. Another section had massive chemical burns, which even my bots had to avoid. Paint, wood, plastics, they were all melted and warped - along with flesh. I saw bodies on the ground, people who must have died in agony, but nobody had been able to rescue them because the area was too hazardous to enter.

I kept my costume on as Eunoia, using my bots to search and aid any survivors on the way back from Somer's Rock. I guess there was another advantage to the extra range - it allowed me better multitasking while still keeping watch over the villains' meeting.

Somer's Rock was a dingy pub that was clearly far removed from the law. Graffiti covered the walls, iron bars covered the windows, and a putrid mix of dried beer and blood covered the floors. I didn't even _want_ my nice bots in on this meeting; the cheap ones derived from garbage suited the locale all too well.

Kaiser appeared to be leading the meeting. Either that, or he had simply used his position to force himself to be the centre of attention. Flanked by Fenja and Menja, two supermodel-esque (dare I say it – Aryan) women dressed like valkyries, he commanded the table like, well, an emperor despite the trashy bar they were sitting in. He himself was wearing shiny armour adorned with blades. It wasn't as large or elaborate as Abyssal's armour, but his looked functional for a normal human who actually needed to move his joints.

Skidmark and Squealer were there too; she sat on her boyfriend's lap. On the other side was a woman in a welder's mask and a bulletproof vest. She had some people behind her that had… deformities. One was a bright orange, the other was an obese man with nearly translucent skin. I didn't recognize them by their costumes, but I knew _what_ they were. Case 53's. Monster capes. Sure, they probably could have been nice people on the inside, but they definitely looked _weird_. That meant it was probably Faultline's crew, who was well-known for recruiting Case 53's. Not exactly a charity group, since they were villains, sitting in on a villain meeting.

There was also another man in a top hat. I didn't recognize him either, but it seemed like the others knew of him well enough not to question his presence. Lastly, there was a group of people in military uniforms. Non-capes. They looked like professionals, with lots of "normal" weaponry. At least, it didn't look like he was going for any kind of theme, unless a being a standard soldier was his theme.

Grue was there, too - I guess that's how Tattletale got in.

Apparently they didn't have as strong a reputation as the others. "Who invited the the fucking kids?" Skidmark drawled.

"And who invited the shit stain?" Grue retorted.

Looks like the meeting was off to a great start already.

"Of course the damn niggers don't got any manners," growled someone behind Kaiser. Tall, hairy, shirtless - that was probably Hookwolf. I was annoyed at the fact that he was already free, but that was just how Brockton Bay worked. Grue and Skidmark both stopped antagonizing each other and glared at the neo-nazi. Nothing to unite people like mutual hatred. Almost seemed like a law in this city.

"Indeed. I'm already starting to wonder if this meeting is worth our time," Kaiser said.

"Look, the ABB are attacking indiscriminately. Bakuda is insane. If the town burns, we all lose. We need to stop her," Faultline said, trying to bring people back on topic. "One of her bombs nearly hit the Palaquin. That's our territory. We normally stay neutral in this city, but it seems like there's no line she won't cross."

"Quite true. I would prefer to actually have a city to rule over," Kaiser said. "So, the news of the day. The ABB, specifically Bakuda, represents a wild and irrational threat. She can strike any one of us without provocation. She's already killed civilians."

"The Protectorate recognizes that Bakuda represents an extreme threat to the city," the mercenary said. "I represent Coil's forces. We have fairly strong intel that the PRT is _unofficially_ willing to overlook criminal activity to rein in the ABB for now."

I wondered how he managed to get that unofficial information. I suppose that meant Lisa's knowledge of leaks and moles inside the PRT were true.

"So, what, we hunt down the damn chinks, we get total immunity? Sweet deal," Skidmark said.

"How do you even know this? You could be talking shit just to get us in trouble," Faultline pointed out. She crossed her arms and watched him steadiliy through the heavy welder's mask she had on.

"We have sources within the PRT," he said. "I only offer what we hear. Nothing more."

"I hope we have similar views on what is considered 'reasonable'. Given that Bakuda has bombed civilian buildings, I believe killing any ABB member approaching us may be considered appropriate," Kaiser said. "I've heard reports of suicide bombers."

"That could be justifiable, with a good enough lawyer," the mercenary said. "Oni Lee is known to use that tactic. Maybe others have joined him."

That actually surprised me. Obviously none of the suicide bombers made it to the hospital - no point in rescuing a dead person. But when I got the chance, I would have to check, preferably from a very safe distance.

I found it strange. The ABB didn't have the kind of ideology behind them that would inspire suicide bombings. They didn't have the numbers, nor the fanaticism. Kaiser, maybe. The E88 were neo-nazis, and perhaps a few members would be fanatical enough to kill themselves for a cause. The ABB was just a loose collection of various Asian immigrants, from Chinese to Japanese to Vietnamese, held together by nothing but the "protection" that Lung and his crew gave - mostly against the E88. From what I heard, they often hated each other nearly as much as everyone else. The only suicide bomber they had was Oni Lee, who only sacrificed his clones using his power. He was better at it than any regular civilian was anyway, so why bother?

I would need to do some more scouting once I had more brain clones completed. I turned my attention back to the meeting.

"...Bakuda and the ABB have gone too far? Nobody targets each other. No claims on territory, product, or money. We don't attack each other until Bakuda is captured or killed. Agreed?"

Tattletale whispered to Grue. "Wait. The truce should last until all of Bakuda's bombs are found and disarmed."

"What's the difference? We bust her base, blast the bitch, break her bombs. Boom, we're done!" Skidmark yelled.

Tattletale shook her head. "She's made contingencies in case she dies. She must have. Until the bombs are gone, nobody's safe."

"Very well then. We will not take action against each other until the danger of bombing has been dealt with. All in favour?" Kaiser asked. Most of them raised their hands.

"Why the fuck ain't you joining, bitch?" Skidmark yelled at Faultline.

She jabbed an armoured finger at him. "We're mercenaries. We work for money. We're defending our own territory, but that's it."

"That is why I invited you today, Faultline. Your crew would be very… helpful in ridding the city of this menace."

Faultline nodded. "We don't normally take jobs in Brockton Bay. Can't shit where you eat. But we may be willing to set that rule aside in this situation. Maybe even work with the PRT if they offer a contract."

"Highly unlikely," said the mercenary. "If you know anything about the ENE Director, she is loathe to work with even her _own_ capes, much less mercenaries."

"We weren't counting on it, just letting you know this is our standard operating procedure."

"Your honesty goes a long way," Kaiser said dryly.

The mercenary captain spoke up next. "Are any of you are willing to aid the Protectorate in the defense against the ABB army? We will be sending a few squads."

"Why the hell should we help those cocksuckers? Truce, sure. Help, no fucking way!" Squealer shouted.

"Lung. You guys want Lung back out on the streets? The Protectorate needs help keeping him locked up," Tattletale asked.

Skidmark shook his head and stood up. "Naw. I'm out. Empire and ABB can fight it out for territory. I'm doin' just fine here. Truce is on, that's all. I ain't helping no heroes. They can suck my dick." He and Squealer left.

All eyes turned to the only group that hadn't said a word all meeting.

"We're just passing through the city. Unfortunately, this ain't something we want to risk our lives over," the man in the top hat said. His group had been mostly silent until now. "If there isn't anything else, we'll be leaving. This city ain't worth it."

"Wait. Trickster, is it?" said the mercenary. "My employer believes we can help each other. We can discuss your needs and compensation immediately."

Trickster and his group looked interested. I didn't hear what else went on; all of them left and packed themselves into a large SUV. They drove off, well out of my range before discussing their deal.

"Wait, nobody's going to try to go after Bakuda?" Grue asked.

Kaiser shook his head. "We will be busy ensuring no bombs are hidden within our territory. We are not risking attacking a Tinker in her workshop - especially not one that specializes in explosives. Feel free to take her on yourself. Feel free to search for her yourself, the Empire hasn't found any clues as to where her workshop may be," he said as he got up. Fenja and Menja followed him. Faultline and her crew walked out with him, as well as everyone else, until only the Undersiders were left. I wasn't surprised the meeting was so short; the villains all seemed to hate each other after all.

"Fuck. What the hell can we do?" Grue asked Tattletale as the meeting dispersed. "Not like we can search the whole city. I don't want this place to go down in flames. Is the boss saying anything?"

"Nope. Boss is keeping quiet. I might be able to figure out where she is. Just keep watch on ABB movements for me, I'll make some good guesses. I think I know someone might be willing to help, though," Tattletale said with a wink.

"You talking about that black knight?" Grue asked.

I knew. And I _was_ willing.

* * *

By the time the meeting was over, I had nearly made it back. It was good to know a few more of the masks that ran this town, putting some faces (or masks, at least) to the names I heard on the news. And the meeting did let me know a little more about how the villains operated. Now I had to get back to healing people.

On the way, I did manage to gather enough bots from the surrounding streets to extract some survivors from the rubble using a lower-quality Abyssal. I didn't want to use the dirty bots to perform first aid, so I had Abyssal drop them off near the hospital ahead of me. He was capable of carrying several of them at once, thanks to his massive size, and I reshaped his armour to be more comfortable for the victims. Panacea, thankfully, was still resting, though with the victims Abyssal was dropping off meant more work for her – or both of us – very soon. I made sure Abyssal disappeared long before I got to the hospital so people wouldn't associate us.

At this point, there was still the occasional boom in the distance. I could never be sure if it was another bomb, or just the aftermath. There were still some fires and sirens off in the distance, but those were practically a constant at this point.

With the villain meeting over, I decided to rearrange my bot-brains. I didn't need to go back to Somer's Rock again. I had my brains move themselves so that they were pointed more towards my house. I needed to have at least five more of them before I went home to have a permanent connection to the hospital. I wouldn't have time to do it within a few hours, but the current situation was as good an excuse as any to stay overnight at the hospital.

Panacea was already back at work. She definitely didn't get enough rest. That girl was burning herself out for sure. She was working near the entrance to the ER, treating the critical patients as they came in. I ran back to the hospital to help lighten her load more quickly. "Sorry for taking so long, Panacea," I said.

"Don't worry about it," she said in a tired voice. It was well past midnight and it didn't look like it was slowing down any time soon. The waiting area was starting to fill up, even with both of us working.

I had just finished with a few patients when my bots in the streets saw an Asian man sprinting towards the hospital with a fearful look on his face. Much further away, an armed ABB gangster was chasing him, carrying with a rifle. The first man didn't look like a member of the ABB - no tattoos, and he looked more like the family man type than a gangster. Other than the fact that he looked crazy. His eyes were wild and he looked like he was frothing at the mouth.

I decided to send some bots to the entrance of the emergency room. I didn't have enough nearby to form Abyssal quickly enough. Instead, I just reinforced my own costume, in case he got violent. He didn't look like the type who would wait patiently to get treated, and maybe would cause some trouble.

As he walked in the door, millions of bots swarmed his body. He ran straight to Panacea.

"Help! Bomb! Brain cape, help!" He was yelling, pointing to the back of his head. My bots swarmed to his head, both inside and out. I saw incision marks, and inside there was definitely some kind of device. My bots pierced through his skin without care. I hadn't seen anything like it before. And I was inclined to believe that it was a bomb.

"What's going on?" Panacea asked, quickly walking over to me. I detected additional electrical activity coming from the implanted device.

"Everyone, get away from him!" I shouted as I moved to put myself between him and my friend. My Eunoia costume was morphing, the bots covering every part of my body to increase my strength and protection. I shoved him away from her as hard as I could, then turned to shield her. With the help of my bots, he flew across the room further than a girl my size had any right to push. I sent him nearly straight out the door.

The room was suddenly engulfed in white light.


	21. Explosion 3

Explosion 3

I felt someone patting my cheek. "Wake up! Wake up! Oh please, Eunoia, you can do it..."

I was groggy. Shit. Splitting headache. Without opening my eyes, I could tell my costume was nearly gone. Most of my bots had been destroyed, but I was surprisingly healthy. I think I must have instinctively hardened my costume into armour when I realized he was going to explode. Sadly, too many of my bots had been destroyed in the blast. I wouldn't be much help until I rebuilt.

I looked around. Beige. Not the familiar ceiling of the hospital. I looked around with my bots. We were outdoors, not too far from the hospital. The entrance to the ER had been blasted open. Surrounding us were lots of patients, laid on the ground haphazardly. Lady Photon, Brandish, Shielder... practically all of New Wave was here, shuttling patients from inside the hospital to this makeshift medical area. And my dad, but he was asleep on the ground nearby.

Panacea was laying in another stretcher beside me, bruised but not in critical condition. She had a few minor burns to her skin, and her hair looked like it had been singed.

Glory Girl was looking after me. "Great! You're awake! Look, don't do any healing, just rest here, alright? You've done enough. You saved my sister's life, so take a break."

I guess I didn't have the equipment I needed to do much healing. Most of my bots had either been destroyed, or scattered by the blast. At least, the ones nearby. My bots in the streets seemed to be fine... and already returning to me.

_You're welcome,_ one of my brains told me.

Right. Even while I was unconscious, my other brains were still active. Neat. Memories came flooding in about what had happened while I had been knocked out – which, unfortunately, wasn't as informative as I liked. The bomb blast had killed several in the immediate vicinity; it wasn't actually that powerful as far as bombs went. Unfortunately, it had been strong enough to fry my bots in the area, so all my other brains were basically blind.

Piecing together what had happened didn't take too long, nor was it complicated. Panacea had saved my life just before passing out herself, healing my wounds just enough. The nurses managed to take care of us after.

Bakuda had nearly killed Panacea. Amy. One of the few friends I had. At first I had wanted to stop her, now I wanted to _kill_ her. The only problem was I had no way to find her. I hoped that the Undersiders were following through with their desire to hunt down Bakuda. Goodness knows that the PRT and villains didn't seem to be doing the job.

My main phone was wrecked, but my secondary phone had survived the blast. I guess being smaller and cheaper actually translated to more durable. Even though the outer plastic casing was basically shattered, but it was still functional. I could send a message to Lisa. Get a handle on what was going on, what all the gangs were doing, what the Undersiders were doing.

Meanwhile, I needed to take control of Abyssal and the rest of my bots. I needed to canvass the city with my bots. Make more brains, search for the criminals. I needed more mass. I needed –

_Already on it,_ several of me told myself.

Huh. My brains had come to the same conclusion while I was unconscious. Of course they had, they were me. Except without a body, so they were even more inclined to get more bots to get things done. The first problem was supply. I had been cautious about using just about anything with carbon before – including plant material and such. But currently, given the state of the city, nobody would notice if their lawns got slightly trimmed. Or that, among all the debris, there was less plastic garbage laying around. Or that the car that had been blown up had less gas in its tank than earlier.

It wasn't as easy to process as the charcoal that Lisa had been supplying, but what it lacked in quality, it made up for in quantity. My bots had been hard at work manufacturing; I was manufacturing more and more bots at an explosive rate. Even while I was unconscious, my other brains had added over a dozen to the... network.

_Hi_, I said to them.

_Hi, _they all replied back. My range was still centered around the hospital for now, but boy was it spreading fast. With close to twenty brains spread around the city, I was down to less than half an hour to make each new one, and getting faster already.

* * *

"Panacea, you shouldn't be up and about yet!" I said to her. It had only been two days since the hospital got bombed, and we were still operating out of tents.

Evacuation was slow, the emergency room was closed, but people who hadn't heard the news were still coming. The hospital was still being evacuated while engineers tried to determine whether the building itself needed to be condemned or if it could be repaired. For now, we had set up new beds in the parking lot. At least the PRT had quick-deploy medical tents, originally designed for Endbringer scenarios but were useful for all sorts of disasters.

That was where we were operating from now. The doctors and nurses, and our families, all insisted that we take a break. But neither of us could, especially when we were _right there_ seeing all the injured and sick right in front of us. I suppose the old saying was true; doctors were bad patients. Not that I was officially a doctor, but medical capes were probably just as bad.

"Speak for yourself," Panacea replied. "You're the one who got half your body burnt off. _Again_."

Right. I hadn't even known about that, since I had been unconscious at the time. Apparently my injuries had been worse than I initially estimated. No wonder I was feeling so hungry.

"Yeah, but you healed me. You can't heal yourself!" I responded.

"I can walk just fine," she said as she demonstrated by going to the next patient, with her IV pole still attached. It didn't roll across the parking lot cement nearly as well as it did on linoleum.

"Well at least let me make an exoskeleton for you," I told her. "Take some weight off." I was building bots like crazy with everything I could get my hands on, so I could spare some to protect her. Plenty of condemned wooden buildings I used as salvage, because of Bakuda. The bombings had slowed down, but not stopped.

"Fine," Panacea said, relenting. My bots would give her more protection, and move her IV pole for her, at least. I kept the bots on the outside of her clothes, just under her costume's coat. "Huh. That's actually pretty comfortable," she said. "Thanks Eunoia." Secretly, I dedicated an additional brain to pay attention to her vitals and surroundings, just in case.

My bots had been working day and night producing more. I needed to cover the city, scour every inch until I found Bakuda. I was a quarter of the way there; with brains buried underground or hidden in the sewers, covering an area that spread outwards from the hospital. Even my house was within my radius now.

And I still hadn't found any trace of her.

There was still plenty of fighting going on, sure. But nothing that would indicate a base of operations. ABB members were out in force, clashing with the police, Protectorate, PRT, and other villains. And amazingly, they weren't backing down. Mainly because of the super-powered grenades and bombs.

Glory Girl and Laserdream flew by in the afternoon, dropping off several heavily-injured gang members. She dumped them on the ground unceremoniously. I _think_ I heard a bone cracking, but they were all still alive, judging by their moaning.

"Ames! Tay-tay! You two doing okay?"

"We're managing," I said. We had divided up the work between us in an odd way – I was managing all the "normal" injuries, while Amy took on the... _weird_ ones. Bakuda's bombs didn't just explode or burn. Some of them had strange effects. Some patients came in with massive radiation poisoning. Others had basically stage III cancer that covered one side of their body, that only hadn't spread because they had gotten it all at once ten minutes ago. Then there were the frostbitten patients, the paralyzed, the ones whose arms had turned to glass... Only Amy could do anything about them.

And those were only the patients that had survived the trip to the hospital. I had witnessed plenty worse through my bots.

Bakuda wasn't just a bomb Tinker, she was practically a Trump, recreating cape-like powers as long as the powers could take the form of an explosion.

I was worried for our teammates – even Glory Girl's invincibility didn't mean much in the face of such weird powers. Normal bombs she could survive. Bakdua's? I wasn't sure. Amy seemed even more stressed.

"Vicky... GG. I'm telling you, be careful! They said on the news Oni Lee has weird bombs now, and he can teleport to you..."

"I'll be fine, I'm not going solo! Crystal's watching my back! Ain't that right, Cryssie?"

Laserdream nodded.

"But still..."

"But nothing!" Glory Girl said with her hands on her hips. Nobody's gonna hurt my sister and get away with it! Bakuda's going DOWN!" With that, she and Laserdream flew off again to continue their patrols. They'd done this quite a few times already, beating up ABB gang members, and then dropping them off at the hospital following a session of "enhanced interrogation."

Not that any of them were able to reveal Bakuda's location.

If they happened to be within range of my bots when it happened, I listened in. I secretly texted Lisa any information I thought might have been relevant, hoping she would figure something out.

* * *

I honestly felt a little exposed at the hospital, and it wasn't just because we were stuck in tents. Dedicating all my bots purely to expansion left me with little to defend myself, even if I could see the danger coming. I could see plenty of fighting going on, and even caught a glimpse of Oni Lee once. Some of that fighting was getting uncomfortably close to the hospital. So, I had to slow down a little, and I focused on having a copy of Abyssal patrolling around the hospital area at all times, with a few extra batches ready to deploy just in case.

I didn't want a repeat someone to finish off the hospital while we were even more vulnerable. Thus, I was considerably worried when I saw a bunch of capes approach the hospital.

They were instantly recognizable as Faultline's crew. I hadn't had any significant interactions with them, and I hadn't seen what had happened outside my range. One of them did look injured – the orange one, Newter. The others were supporting him, wearing full-coverage rubber or leather gloves while he struggled around in their grip. He was conscious, but not very aware of his surroundings. He seemed to be straining and writhing against some heavy restraints, with his eyes shut and teeth gritted in pain.

Abyssal formed in front of them. I could guess what they wanted, but after Bakuda's suicide bomber, there was no such thing as being too cautious.

"Wait, truce! Truce! Newter's hurt, he needs medical attention! We've been fighting against the ABB," Faultline explained.

The semi-translucent man spoke up. "Eunoia works there, yes? I am Gregor. Newter has limited options. Biology is strange, normal doctors might not work. Skin is hallucinogenic, may hurt Panacea. Drugs do not have effect on him, medicines do not work normally. We come in peace, see if Eunoia will help. Please."

I made Abyssal step aside, but very clearly made his helmet move to track them as they walked past, then had him disintegrate while they still had their eyes on him. Just so they would know he would be watching. Even the hardened mercenaries were a little creeped out by him and picked up the pace to the hospital.

Back in my actual body, I tried not to look like I had been expecting them. They were explaining things to the admitting clerk and were taking up a lot of space, though that was more for everyone else's safety. Newter was sweating _and_ bleeding, while still spasming in pain. The rest of the crew was trying to make sure none of his fluids touched anyone or accidentally struck a bystander. At least the good thing about being outdoors now was that there was more space to spread out.

Soon enough, I heard the overhead speakers. _"Eunoia, please report to Triage. Eunoia, report to Triage."_

I was only in the next tent over. I popped my head out and asked, "Whats up?" I tried to act surprised when I caught sight of Newter rolling around on the ground.

"Case 53 here's got some issues. Can't touch his skin though, he secrets some kind of drug. They asked for you specifically. Want to give it a try?"

"Sure. Just keep in mind I can't do everything," I agreed.

"Anything's better than nothing," Faultline said. "Newter's suffering. We want you to do whatever you can to help."

That was as close to permission as I could get, as it looked like Newter wasn't cognizant enough to actually give permission himself. I reconfigured my costume to inject my bots from a longer distance, and watched as they flowed through and around his body. They certainly detected a lot of strange proteins on his skin and blood that were too complex to analyze, but at least those proteins didn't do anything to my bots.

"That's it?"

"Give me a few minutes, I'm still trying to figure out his body," I said. I glanced over at the translucent man – Gregor. At least I could see how his organs were arranged from here, and it certainly wasn't normal. Neither was Newter's. The circulatory system was the easiest to figure out, even if his heart was in the wrong place and didn't have four proper chambers. The skeleton and musculature were different to humans on a molecular level, but functionally close enough. That's not even mentioning his tail. Still, I managed to patch up his burns and clot up the damaged blood vessels – they were only minor issues.

But why was he still in so much pain, even though his body was mostly okay? That usually pointed to brain damage, or nerve damage. I started investigating both. His brain, too, was mostly-human. It had the structures I could recognize, sure, but things seemed out of proportion and oddly shaped. I started to map it out as best I could.

What I found was that all of his pain receptors were firing full blast. I had my bots surround the cells and clamp down on them, effectively numbing the signal. Inside the brain, the areas responsible for _processing_ the pain were also going nuts. Likewise, I had to use my bots to suppress those areas. Unfortunately, that caused Newter to fall unconscious.

"What did you do to him? Is he okay?"

"I think he'll be fine. I've just cut off his sense of pain, but he'll have to be in a coma for now. What was he hit with? Some kind of drug?"

Faultline shook her head. "No. Newter's immune to drugs of all kinds. He was hit with a bomb of some kind. We thought it was an EMP or something, since it caused no damage to the surrounding area, but, well, _this_ started happening to him."

"Crap. Well, we might have to keep him here until the effect wears off, then I'll stop numbing him," I explained.

With some extra time to burn, I decided to investigate Newter's brain a bit more. It was different. Educational. I had never seen a Case 53's brain before. His Corona Pollentia seemed almost normal, though in the wrong place in the brain. I almost didn't recognize it at first, and thought it was a tumor before I realized it. Very strange. It was a little bigger, and more dense. It seemed to have more connections to the rest of the body. Not just to his extra organs, like the secretion glands and the tail. Everywhere. Almost like a... second, miniature brain that was piggybacking on to his. On normal capes it was just another part of the brain. I wonder why his turned out that way.

I wouldn't actually mind scanning Faultline's crew for free, if they wanted to volunteer. Out of personal curiosity, though I'm sure Dr. Akagi would like to have the data, too...

* * *

Work at the hospital was relatively constant, but working to extend my range kept speeding up. As I saw more, I fed what information I could to Tattletale via text. I could only tell her for certain that Bakuda _wasn't_ anywhere within a twenty-block radius of the hospital. And some of the movements of other capes and gang members. Maybe she could figure something out about Bakuda. Nobody else had, so far. Not even me.

And that was including all the additional capes on the street – especially the out-of-towners that dropped in after the Kill Order had been signed.

Kill Orders weren't exactly something the PRT used lightly. It was a significant cash prize to capture Bakuda, dead or alive – hero, villain, civilian. Any villain who came to collect the prize was also granted immunity from capture and prosecution during their visit to the Protectorate to do so. It was, in essence, a truce from the Protectorate.

On one hand, that was a good incentive to get many, many more willing participants in hunting down someone dangerous.

On the other hand, it meant there would be a free-for-all in the city. One mad bomber destroying the town was one thing. Dozens of superpowered mercenaries, heroes, villains all descending into a battle royale in order to lay claim to the prize could easily cause even more damage than Bakuda had caused herself. Lastly, kill orders were final. No matter what Bakuda did after this, even if she surrendered, anyone who killed her would still have a right to the bounty. It meant that Bakuda would be truly backed into a corner with no way out. And cornered animals acted desperately.

That had been true in Minneapolis a few years ago. Some electricity-wielding cape, Zeusinator or something like that, had killed a few too many people and was deemed unfit for rehabilitation. His murder count was somewhere in the hundreds. Once the order had been made and dozens of capes were out for his head... well, he fled to the local power plant, killed everyone inside, then overloaded all the power lines in an attempt to escape. The final death toll more than doubled, if you counted all the people on life support who died, and those killed in traffic accidents, and the resulting fires sparked across the entire region, and so on.

Then again, Bakuda was trying to hold an entire city hostage and had a murder count that rivaled Lung's, in only a few days. I think it was the bombing of the hospital, nearly killing me and Panacea, that really convinced the people in charge to authorize it.

And even then, with all those capes searching around, people _still_ hadn't found Bakuda. Not without a Thinker power.

My phone buzzed. Tattletale had messaged me back. She'd sent me an address, and a time.

* * *

**Author's Note: **A bit shorter than usual, but story-wise I just felt like the next scenes just work better in the next chapter.


	22. Explosion 4

Explosion 4

I had to rearrange my extra brains to get my range to extend from the hospital to the meeting spot in time for when I was supposed to meet with Tattletale. I sacrificed a good portion of my vision of the south side of the city, but that was more Empire territory and the least likely spot where Bakuda could have been anyway. All of this bot movement took up part of my attention, but it didn't detract from the work I was doing from the hospital.

Mainly because most people coming in were already dead, and not just injured. Bakuda's bombs weren't just explosives, they were lethal in ways that only Tinkertech could produce. Even Panacea couldn't heal people who had partially been turned into stone like some kind of fairy tale; their bodies were converted into inorganic matter with no organs left to heal. Half the time they died from shock on the way here. It only strengthened my resolve to actually catch Bakuda. Not just try to heal the people who survived the blasts.

The Undersiders were mostly huddled behind a boxcar when they came into view. "See that building? I'm almost certain she's there," Tattletale was saying, pointing at an old train service building. "Bitch, you're going to have to keep your distance. She sees the dogs, she might cut and run. Keep patrolling the perimeter in case she does run, you can stop her. Grue, your darkness might help us get closer."

Bitch nodded and took her dogs further away. They prowled along the mostly-empty road.

"Hey, we found the psycho, job's done. Why aren't we just going back and taking our pay?" Regent asked.

"Because she's got a million-dollar bounty on her head," Tattletale said. "Boss isn't going to match that one."

"Okay, I like money, but I'm not stupid. We don't have the firepower to take out the entire ABB coming at us with mega-grenades," Regent countered.

"I've called for backup," Tattletale said with a knowing grin.

As the final neuro-bot brain was formed, I took control of the bots in the area and started to survey the Undersiders' situation. While Abyssal's robots approached them, I kept the cheap surveillance bots watching but didn't see any guards at all. Then again, maybe they were hidden inside instead of patrolling outside. The Undersiders had crept up a hundred yards closer, still carefully watching the building when the bots arrived.

It was strange that we were here, in the Trainyard region. I remember that New Wave had swept through this area a while ago, as did the Empire, _and_ the Protectorate. It was a semi-obvious location to hide a workshop for the ABB, being close to their main territory and lots of abandoned buildings and hiding spots to work with. That was why every major power in the city had swept through the area, and found nothing but a few low-level gang members carrying scrap. Probably just gathering materials.

Then again, Tattletale seemed sure. Thinkers tended to have a reputation for overconfidence. She already knew I was there before I started assembling him into his full body. "Excellent. The cavalry has arrived."

"Who? Whoaaa!" Regent turned and freaked out at the sudden presence of a thousand pounds of armoured knight behind him. Grue just nodded. In the distance, Bitch looked at her.

"Oh yeah, you missed out last time, Regent." Tattletale seemed to take a little extra pleasure from snarking at their fourth member.

"I stand by my decision," Regent said. "Video games are more important than puppies and no money."

"Don't let Bitch hear you say that," Tattletale said.

"So you're here to take out Bakuda too?" Grue asked.

I made Abyssal nod.

"You sure he ain't just going to turn on us?" Regent asked. I made Abyssal glared at him as much as a dark helmet without a face could glare. He shrank back.

"Hey, Regent, try not to piss off the guy who can kill you by sitting on you. Just some general life advice, really," Tattletale said. Turning to Abyssal, she said, "Bakuda's base must be in there. Underground, or hidden in some other way. Cloaked? Ugh, it's giving me a headache trying to figure it out. I know she's here, I just need a little more info. Grue can sneak us in close."

Abyssal nodded.

I moved the cheaper bots ahead of us for better scouting while keeping Abyssal's bots with the Undersiders. Grue kept us under the cover of his darkness, so Abyssal was basically blind. I had to watch using the bots outside his cloud of darkness.

While the outside of the building looked dark and deserted, I could see the people patrolling on the catwalks inside the building. There were no lights on inside; instead they appeared to be wearing night-vision goggles or something like that. Close to a dozen guards were up above, and another dozen at ground level. This had certainly not come up when New Wave last patrolled this area.

Bombs were wired to the doors. There were weird devices on the windows as well, possibly bombs, maybe laser tripwires or something. Although I still couldn't find Bakuda anywhere inside, it certainly looked like a valuable location. We needed a way in, and doors and windows weren't the way. At least, not for the Undersiders.

Abyssal motioned for them to stop. I dispersed his bots into the air, moving them through the ventilation systems and spreading themselves throughout the interior. It wasn't difficult to find every single guard - none of them were capes. The ABB didn't have many capes as it was, and since Lung was imprisoned and Oni Lee was probably busy trying to free his boss, Bakuda only had regular footsoldiers to guard her workshop.

My bots had no problems entering their bloodstream. I'll be honest, I made absolutely no attempt to keep them sterile – I didn't quite care about what infections they ended up with. None of them noticed. Each of them only felt a tiny pinprick or an itch at most. I waited until every single one of the guards had my bots inside their bodies, and then I cut off the blood supply to their brains simultaneously.

Within seconds, every single one of them collapsed. None of them had any time to notice the others were collapsing too, so no alarms were raised. Peace and quiet. The bots swarmed over the rest of the building to make sure I hadn't missed a hidden corner with another goon somehwere. Nobody conscious, but there were booby traps on the inside of the doors. I couldn't figure out how to disarm the thing without setting them off.

Abyssal motioned for them to move to the side, a section of wall, far away from the booby-trapped doors. I drew his sword, making sure to line the edge of the blade with the diamond tool tips of my bots.

Tattletale realized what I was going to do. "Grue, we need your darkness to be extra thick here. Muffle everything, just in case Bakuda's listening."

I had taken out all the guards, but I had forgotten that Bakuda might still have monitoring devices. I didn't find any, but then again, Tinkertech.

He nodded, spreading his power until it was pitch black. Abyssal slammed the wall with his blade, and not a sound escaped. Huh. I didn't realize Grue's power also blocked sound that well. I guess I hadn't been paying enough attention last time. I slashed at the wall again. The force definitely smashed through the cinderblock wall easily, but the extra force from the swing also damaged some of the diamond tips. I shifted the bots around the blade so it had a fresh edge, and sliced at the wall a few more times.

Then I realized I didn't have to do it so slowly. By continuously cycling the bots through so that the edge of the blade was always fresh, I would be able to have an extremely sharp blade. In fact, if I did it faster... it would act like a microscopic chainsaw as I cut.

I found it to be exceptionally effective. Instead of hacking away at the wall over and over, I could cut smoothly through the wall. After having weakened the wall enough, I didn't bother cutting, and just sent Abyssal's body smashing through the cinders.

Grue's darkness had done its job; I didn't see any change inside. If Bakuda had been monitoring us, then she either hadn't reacted or didn't notice. Nor had any silent alarms been set off; I didn't notice any ABB members in the surrounding area coming to reinforce this building. All of us snuck in through the newly-created side entrance into a utility room.

"How are we taking out the guards?"

Tattletale looked at Grue, then at Abyssal. I gave her an okay signal. "They've already been taken out."

"What? No way."

He cautiously opened the door and peeked into the main area of the warehouse. Then he opened it wide and walked forward, continuing to spread his darkness. Upon seeing what the interior looked like, he retracted his darkness and glanced at Abyssal.

"Damn. He can do that? What the fuck's the point of the sword?"

Regent whistled as he surveyed all the unconscious guards. He immediately grabbed one of the night-vision goggles from them. "Nice loot."

"We still need to tie them up and gag them. They're just knocked out, they'll wake up in a few minutes," Tattletale explained.

While the rest of them were tying up and disarming the guards, I spread as many robots around the building as possible for a more thorough search. I was able to get into every single nook and cranny. There was no hidden room or secret trapdoor. Even when we started shoving boxes and junk out of the way, there was nothing below.

"Hey, Tats. You sure it's supposed to be around here? I'm not finding anything," Grue said.

Tattletale was thinking hard, massaging an oncoming headache. "Yes, it's here. It has to be here. I'm sure of it. It's just not..." Her eyes snapped open. "She's using a pocket dimension. Lung must have paid for something from Toybox."

"Toybox? Sounds like a kid's store," Grue said.

"If you're the kind of kid who can afford to pay five million dollars for a laser sword, sure," Tattletale said. "Or a stable pocket dimension. Fuck, Lung must have considered Bakuda a more valuable investment than I thought."

"How do you know it's Toybox?"

"Doesn't matter," Tattletale said. "Toybox or some other Tinker willing to sell. Bakuda can make pocket dimensions with her bombs, sure, but _stable_ is not her game. It's definitely a pocket dimension though."

"How do we force her to open it? We can't just camp here and wait for her to blow up the city."

I was almost willing to give up. My machines were small, but there was no way I could make them rip apart the fabric of space-time. My Tinker powers were completely blank on the matter, too. I could build bots that were small, but not small enough to squeeze between the dimensions of reality. Screw that.

"Nothing can force her. She can probably hunker down and live off of supplies for a month," Tattletale said. That was something I could do. Simply keep bots here permanently – covering the entire city, and beyond, was already part of my plan. If it came down to laying siege, I would win against her, but how long would it take?

"I guess that's it, then. Call it a night," Regent said, stretching and yawning. "I'm gonna go play some Battlefield's Call."

"No, wait!" Tattletale said. "We can still get her tonight. There's a way..."

"Come on, spit it out."

"We draw enough attention that other people who _can_ open it will flock here. Vista might be able to, or Armsmaster if he has a bit of time to analyze it."

Regent crossed his arms. "You've gotta be kidding. You want to call for help from the heroes?"

"Not like we know any villains who could help," Tattletale said. "You want to save the city or not?"

"Naw. I'd rather have the money. If I have to split the bounty with everyone, _and_ the heroes, it ain't worth it," Regent said.

"You can be on bomb-checking duty every night until Bakuda's dead or captured, then," Grue answered. "I'm not letting this city get turned into a crater."

"Aw, fuck that. It'll cut into my gaming time," Regent replied. "You seriously think we can take her out now? Why not just camp here and starve her out?"

"And give her more time to build what she needs? We have the advantage now. We need to use it," Tattletale said.

"So how do we actually lure her out? Or get the heroes here?" Grue asked. "I don't think they'll come running just because gave them a phone call."

Tattletale pointed at the booby-trapped doors. "We set off the bombs deliberately. Everyone's bound to notice."

Abyssal got up and motioned for the rest of them to go. Tattletale understood and moved them to a safe place, far away from the building. While they were running off, I also buried my brain-copies in the area deeper underground for protection, along with most of Abyssal. With the cheap and disposable bots I had, I sent them crawling all over the bombs that trapped the entrances. I didn't know much about triggering bombs, so I used the bots to simply chew through wires randomly.

It seemed like foolish random tampering was enough. Six explosions went off simultaneously. The explosions seemed to be directed outwards, towards whoever would have been standing by the door. While the damage to the building was minimal, there was enough of a shockwave that broke most of the windows and sent up a massive cloud of dust and dirt.

I paused to check my bots monitoring the rest of the city. Yes, the blast could be heard from that distance. Whether or not the other capes were actually paying attention was another question.

As my bots dug their way back to the surface from underground, I heard a young woman's voice ring out across the building.

"Who the hell was that?" It was probably Bakuda, although it sounded different from the voice that had been playing on the evening news. I would chalk it up to the spacetime-warping mechanisms, or just bad microphones. What surprised me was that she hadn't known we had taken out all her guards. Maybe her bombs had been her only alerts? I suppose the cell phone reception into a different dimension must be pretty limited.

The Undersiders had made their way back to the building as well, looking cautiously optimistic.

"Ha ha ha! You idiots think you can stop me? You're a bunch of dumbasses standing on my turf, and you think that means you have any chance of getting into my vault? Fuck, you guys are stupid. Now die!"

Space warped a little bit, and a bomb popped out of nowhere. I sent Abyssal running for cover. When it exploded, it wasn't so much an explosion as it was a ball of electricity, sending sparks and shocks in random directions. Thankfully the Undersiders were still at the entrance to the building, and the only things that got fried were the unconscious ABB guards.

"So, how are we supposed to survive this?" Grue asked. "We can't shoot at her in there."

"We fall back for now. Unless Abyssal here can..." She looked at my knight, but I wasn't sure about what she wanted me to do. I still couldn't warp space. If she kept throwing bombs at us, I wasn't sure if we could survive long enough for the heroes to actually arrive.

Bakuda's voice rang through the warehouse again. "Not dead yet? Well, have another! Fucking cockroaches! I promise it'll hurt less if you stay still!"

Space warped again, and another bomb appeared from the distortion. This bounced up and down while spinning, and sprayed acid everywhere. Some of it splashed on the unconscious guards - it rapidly dissolved through their body. They woke up from the extreme pain and screamed in agony before they quickly succumbed to the injury.

Shit. Bakuda didn't even care about her own guards. Given how she forced recruits with implanted bombs, I shouldn't have been surprised. But the callousness of her tactics disgusted me.

"We can't stay in here for long. If she throws a bigger one, we're dead. This is too much. We're leaving," Grue ordered. "Let the Protectorate do the job. A million ain't worth dying to that."

Regent nodded in agreement.

Tattletale gave a pleading look to Abyssal. Why was she so desperate to take out Bakuda now? Something she knew that I didn't? It seemed important to her though, and I was pretty sure it wasn't her civic pride.

Even though the Undersiders were making their way out, I knew Abyssal could take plenty of punishment. At the very least, if Baukda wasted all her ammo trying to "kill" him, she would have less to use on others, right? I didn't mind helping Tattletale out since it was right in line with what I wanted to do anyway. I just needed to know _how_.

Another bomb popped out, this time it pulsed outwards. Absolutely nothing happened to Abyssal, but the few guards in the ground who were still alive started screaming and spasming in agony. Tattletale, who was behind the other two screamed and fell. That bomb had an even bigger blast radius than the others.

"Regent! Regent, numb me! Numb everything! Auggh!" she screamed out. She collapsed and continued to writhe on the ground. Damn. I had to assume that bomb worked directly on the nervous system. Abyssal picked her up and helped move the rest of them out the door, while Regent did whatever he did.

While I was carrying her, Tattletale whispered directly into the bots that made up Abyssal's arm. "Get your 'smoke' inside there when she throws the next bomb, or talks. If it's ready when it opens, the portal should be two-way."

So that was what she meant. After I dropped her off outside, Abyssal ran back in and dispersed the bots into the air. Hopefully Bakuda's space-warping followed some kind of logic. If her bombs could come out, my bots could go in, but only at the moment Bakuda opened up a small portal for her attacks. I didn't know where the bombs would be coming from, so I dissolved Abyssal's body and spread the bots around the entire building.

"What the fuck? He's going back in?" Grue asked. "He's either crazy tough or just crazy."

"I'm sure he can take it. We need to stay out here in case Bakuda escapes. Be ready," Tattletale said. Her body was completely paralyzed at the moment; she was only talking and breathing. Grue had to carry her alone while Regent focused on keeping her numbed. They moved very slowly, trying to reach Bitch and her dogs.

"You say that like you're sure he can win."

"Maybe."

Abyssal was far tougher and replaceable than any of them. Any one of Bakuda's bombs would have been deadly to them, but only a few of them could truly stop Abyssal. I just lay in wait until Bakuda tried her move one more time.

I didn't know if I could control the bots through to the pocket dimension. I had a limited range already, and I doubted that alternate dimensions were included in that range. That meant I couldn't use the bots for anything complex, like disarming Bakuda or stealing her remote controls or anything like that. I don't know how much of a window I had to work with, but if the door bombs were any indication, messing things up at random was a perfectly decent way to mess up with bombs – if you wanted them to explode.

Bakuda surely had a huge stockpile of bombs inside her workshop, and she could blow herself to hell for all I cared.

Disarming bombs carefully was difficult. Disarming them recklessly was not. If Bakuda was a careful person, she would have designed her bombs with plenty of safeties, ensuring that whatever fuelled their explosions would simply fizzle out if other parts of the bomb started to malfunction. I certainly wasn't claiming a Thinker rating, but I was pretty sure 'careful' wasn't a good word to describe Bakuda.

"Fuck you, why didn't that hurt you? Some kind of Breaker bullshit? Just fucking die already, you dipshits. You can't touch me, but I'll definitely find something that'll kill ya! Don't try to mess with the world's smartest fucking tinker!"

I was glad that Bakuda just couldn't stop talking. It gave me longer to find the portal where the bomb would be coming from. While it was too small to push bots through just yet, I just had to wait until she widened it to fit a bomb in. I only managed a million or so on my first try, and made them roam around and cut every wire they came across until I lost control of them.

Meanwhile, I had to make Abyssal dodge a freezing bomb. Ice crystals grew across the floor, walls, and even the high ceiling. Water pipes cracked and burst with ice almost immediately; the guards on the floor were frozen solid like popsicles. I could feel Abyssal slow down - while the cold wasn't good for him, his body had no water to freeze or any true vulnerability to cold.

"Had enough yet? Try this one! You'll make a good test subject! Haha!" As Bakuda talked once more, I got another glimpse of what was inside. Apparently my power could "connect" even if the portal wasn't big enough for an actual bot to fit, as long as the portal was there. There weren't enough bots to see properly, but I could "feel" lots of chemicals, wires, tubes, and containers. They cut, drilled, and sliced away at everything.

Bakuda launched another bomb at Abyssal, and I managed to sneak in another few million bots inside. With a slightly better view of the interior, I had my bots move towards what looked light it might be sensitive or valuable before my control of them was cut off again.

This bomb that came through seemed to be some form of gravity bomb, lifting things way up into the air by reversing gravity, then slamming them back into the ground at quadruple earth gravity.

At least my microbots could survive those esoteric effects easily. The remainder of the guards did not. Boxes shattered, bones were pulverized. The guards who were frozen literally shattered. I didn't want to see what happened to their bodies after they thawed, but at least they probably didn't feel what had happened to them. Unlike the ones that died to the acid bomb.

"FUCK. YOU."

Another portal opening. Another few million bots sneaking their way in. Another glimpse inside. Several containers were leaking. Chemicals mixing. Several things were cut. I saw sparks. And fire. Probably good.

The message was brief. The bomb was not. Somehow, Bakuda had managed to create a bomb that exploded over and over. The first explosion was so _normal_ that I was almost disappointed. And then the bomb exploded again, scattering my bots. And it bounced, and exploded again. And again. And again. That single thing kept going and going, damaging enough things that the building was about to collapse.

I anticipated another bomb and another portal, but it didn't come. I waited a little longer. Maybe my bots had done the job. Maybe she was out of ammo. The bouncing, continuously-exploding bomb was still going.

There were no more bombs, no more gloating from Bakuda. Nobody was sure if that was a good thing or not. Maybe she was dead, maybe she had decided to hunker down. We couldn't know.

I reformed Abyssal outside the building as it started to crumble, and caught up to the Undersiders.

"Tats? What does this mean?" Grue asked. "Did he kill her? I'm still hearing explosions."

Tattletale shook her head. "No. The building's coming down, though. Get ready, I think she's going to try to escape."

A gigantic portal opened up on the outside of the rubble. A Jeep came roaring out of it, followed by many, many explosions, electricity, flames, and chaos that followed behind. My bots had done even better than I expected. Bakuda, with her gas-mask and a bandolier of grenades, was driving in a panic. She smashed straight into a crate, swerving wildly to avoid another and nearly flipped her vehicle.

I couldn't see inside the portal; all the bots I had in there were destroyed. But the good news was that everything else inside there seemed to also be destroyed. The dangers of being a bomb tinker, I guess.

I tried to get Abyssal to take a swing at her, but she managed to swerve out of the way again. She fired a grenade from her grenade launcher, but between driving and operating the huge gun with one hand, the shot flew off harmlessly into into the distance. I saw wood rot and metal rust almost instantly where it hit. My bots in the area instantly burnt off into carbon dioxide. That was actually a deadly one to Abyssal; I was glad she had wasted it.

Grue spread his darkness in front of the car, obscuring her vision. He couldn't get enough of it out there fast enough before she drove straight through. Her wheel must have hit something in the darkness, as her car bounced up and nearly flipped on its side. She drove right past us on two wheels, finally landing back on all four as she hit the gravel roads beyond the train tracks.

"Shit! She's getting away! Let's hope Bitch can pin her down," Grue shouted as they ran out of the building, trying to chase the vehicle on foot.

I had an alternative. Even as I sent Abyssal running after her at full speed, I made a second copy of him out of my cheap robots further down the road, behind Bitch's dogs. It was merely a hollow shell, with no strength, no weight behind it. It was just enough to hopefully scare her as she approached.

I saw the explosions that Bakuda used to keep the demon dogs at bay. They bravely followed the commands to "fetch" the car, snapping at the bumper and tearing at the sheet metal with their massive jaws. Still, Bakuda managed to just barely fight them off, blasting parts of her own car with her grenade launcher. She gunned the gas pedal as soon as the last of the dogs lost their grip.

She saw the copy of Abyssal on the road ahead of her, and again tried to swerve, but the car wasn't handling very well after all the abuse it had suffered. I made the fake-Abyssal jump in front of the car. As the car struck, the shell basically splattered across the car like a paper mâché doll.

"What the fuck? That thing was just a hologram or something?" I heard Bakuda curse. No, Bakuda, it wasn't. While the cheap robots couldn't do as much as Abyssal's primary bots, they could mess things up easily. The ones that stuck to the car crawled all over the vehicle, cutting as many things apart as they could. Fuel lines, electrical lines, brake lines, steering fluid, coolant hoses, whatever they could get their little tools on.

The engine sputtered as fuel failed to make its way into the cylinders, but instead leaked all over the outside of the burning-hot engine block. The car burst into flames, obscuring the windshield with thick, oily smoke. Bakuda tried to steer, but found it difficult when the power steering mechanism failed, all while her tires were leaking air. She lost control, and slammed on the brakes in a panic. Brakes that no longer worked.

Seconds later, the car flipped over, on fire, and Bakuda was crawling out through the window. Luck must have been the bomb tinker's secondary power, because she not only managed to survive the impact, she also just managed to avoid a secondary explosion from one of her misplaced grenades. She was thrown clear of the wreckage with her weapons in hand. She stood up and loaded up the grenade launcher, then continued hobbling down the road.

"Backup! Where the hell is my backup, you idiots?" she was shouting. "I'll kill all your families if you don't get the fuck over here right now!"

We managed to catch up to her before she got far. Bitch had gone back to pick up the rest of her team with her dogs, while Abyssal walked up to face Bakuda on his own.

I had Abyssal motion for the Undersiders to stay back. Bakuda was still armed with very lethal ammunition. If they tried to take her on, it could easily be fatal. If Abyssal was destroyed, I could still rebuild him.

Abyssal approached Bakuda carefully. He was still spreading out like smoke, hopefully to surround her. I personally doubted that his main body could survive all her grenades; I would use it mainly as a distraction instead. On the other hand, she had some pretty thick clothing on, including a gas mask and what looked like a bombproof suit. I couldn't just jab my bots into her skin like all the other mooks, it would take time to get through her costume.

"I know your trick. You're not even real! You're some kind of hologram or projection!" Bakuda shouted. "Which one of you is controlling it?" She aimed her grenade launcher at the Undersiders.

Time to prove just how real Abyssal was. I made him run more quickly towards her. As he passed the crashed Jeep, I made him tear off a broken door and hurl it in her direction.

"Fuck! Fuck, what is that?" Bakuda shouted as she jumped to the side. She another grenade at Abyssal. He dodged it, partially. Part of his arm and leg was caught in a sphere, completely stuck. I lost control of those bots, but they didn't move. Even the bots that were in the air didn't fall to the ground or anything. They were frozen in time. Wasn't this Clockblocker's ability? Damn, she could just about put any ability into bomb form. Whatever. It wouldn't matter when she was dead.

"Gotcha, you dumb fucking brute! Next, you're gonna -"

I simply disconnected the robots that made up his left arm and leg. Using the internal robots, I reformed those parts of his body and charged at her again. Sure, he lost a bit of mass, but against a hundred-fifty pound woman, the difference between a thousand pounds and eight hundred pounds of bots charging at her was not important.

She hastily fired her next grenade. This one caught Abyssal's legs. I could sense the bots were frozen in ice, but still perfectly functional. The temperatures would have instantly killed a person, freezing the water inside their cells and such, but Abyssal had no such weakness. I had the bots simply move and vibrate, breaking up the ice that stuck them together and soldiering onwards.

"Oh, I know what you are now! I have just the thing for you!" Bakuda snarled as she palmed multiple grenades on her bandolier. She took a bit of extra time to load up the grenade launcher. I had Abyssal rush towards her, because I had no idea what it was she had.

Right as she shot at Abyssal, her arm jerked downwards, causing it to hit the ground only a few feet ahead of her. The explosion wasn't big, nor was the bomb very lethal. It seemed to spray another kind of aerosol; a thick foggy substance. Abyssal leaped over it as best he could. I noted that the bots that did touch the fog got stuck – they clumped together. This stuff was even stronger than epoxy, maybe stronger than containment foam. My bots would be able to break through it eventually, but not quickly.

Funny how her least-lethal bomb was going to cause Abyssal the most trouble. After he landed, I just shed the stuck bots. There was still a few hundred pounds of him left.

"No! Fuck!" The glue bomb, exploding so close to her, had managed to get her foot stuck to the road as well. She was trying to untie the boot and escape.

I was glad she was scared. It meant she was focused on Abyssal's body, and not on the small bots i had circling around her, crawling up her body and her bandolier. Like I had said with my other bots, I just instructed them to mess around with the explosives she had. I didn't want to knock her unconscious and send her to jail.

The victims I treated at the hospital wouldn't be living the rest of their lives in the comfort of a jail cell. In fact, right in front of my actual self at the hospital, I was tending to a burn victim. One limb missing, third degree burns over half of his body. It was hard to feel even a tiny ounce of sympathy for her right now. Bakuda deserved a taste of her own medicine.

I wondered if Bakuda put more care into the grenades she had strapped to her body than the bombs she had lying around inside her workshop. A few snipped wires managed to set off a chain reaction and flush her out. If she was as smart as she thought she was, my bots would, at best, just disable the grenades. If she was as dumb as I hoped, the results would be a repeat of what happened a short while ago.

Bakuda noticed something was wrong with her grenades before they went off; she immediately disconnected the bandolier and threw it aside. Once again, her arm twitched, and the bandolier didn't go nearly as far as she intended.

She rolled in the opposite direction, but that wasn't enough to save her from the effects of multiple bombs. Not only were there normal explosions, but intense heat, and a localized earthquake. Her own costume appeared to explode a little, protecting her from the bulk of the damage. Ablative armour. Of course a bomb tinker would make that.

Still, it didn't protect her from the _other_ effects of her other grenades.

As the ground shook, she lost her balance, and fell down and rolled into the crater with the burning napalm flames. Part of the ground as well as the lower right side of her body and leg were turned into glass. The transmuted glass melted from the heat. The upper right, including her entire arm and part of her chest, were suffering from massive burns. She clawed at the ground with her left arm, gasping in pain but she still managed to laugh maniacally between gasps of breath.

She ripped off her gas mask, probably to help her breathe better. "Even... when I... _hrkkk_ lose... I win," she said with a smug, contorted smile. I wasn't sure if I should kill her quickly, or let her suffer. She nearly killed Panacea; she didn't deserve a chance to be healed. She was going to die either way.

"We can't let her die! She's got a dead-man's switch rigged to her heart!" Tattletale shouted from behind. "All the bombs in the city are going to go off as soon as her heart stops beating!"

Bakuda just let out a wet, gurgling laugh. That was probably her lungs filling up with blood.

_Now_ you tell me? I wished I could glare harder at Tattletale. If she had to survive, only one person could actually save her. Panacea. And that was the reason I wanted to kill Bakuda. Practicality won over my desire for revenge, though; I couldn't let all the bombs in the city go off.

I had Abyssal grab her and yank her up. His massive hand had a firm grip around her neck, and nobody noticed the bots that forced their way into her body through her many gaping wounds. His bots were basically the same as the ones I used for medical procedures, so I got to work.

I sterilized the wounds as much as I could so that she would survive the trip, and I didn't do it very carefully. Bacteria infection in her throat? I just sliced her larynx out and sealed the wound with bots. One lung collapsed and bleeding? I could seal up thousands of tiny blood vessels, or just chop of the lung and seal off two big blood vessels. She didn't need _both_ of her lungs to live. Internal bleeding? I just clamped off the renal arteries. Her kidneys would fail, but that wouldn't kill her right away. All she needed was her heart, her brain, and oxygen for a few more hours. Everything else could be sacrificed.

I had no sympathy for her. There were still dozens more in front of me lying in agony. The morgue was full. She'd hurt Panacea and sacrificed dozens of her own people. If she thought she "won" by prolonging her life, I would show that so-called genius how stupid she was. I made sure the blood flow to her nerves were fine until I was finished with "cleaning her up" though. I wouldn't allow her the luxury of numbness.

Panacea could probably rebuild most of her body. In fact, she'd feel obligated to. But Panacea needed the patient to have enough body mass to do so. Chopping off her arms and legs meant that she wouldn't have enough biomass for anything other than repairing the critical internal organs. No arms meant no Tinkering. Panacea didn't have to feel bad about being unable to fully heal someone when the biomass simply didn't exist.

I sent billions of bots surround her heart to force it to keep pumping no matter what. The bots could see the intricate wiring she had implanted on herself; I was careful to make sure my bots didn't touch them. There. Now she couldn't die even if she begged for it.

* * *

I had an excuse ready by the time Abyssal made it to the medical tent outside the hospital. All of New Wave was still guarding the patients when we came riding in on Bitch's dogs. I could see through my own eyes how fearsome he looked, a giant armoured man riding a giant demonic dog. I couldn't blame Brandish, Lady Photon, Shielder, Laserdream, and Manpower for all gathering together in a defensive line in case of trouble.

Abyssal jumped off the dog and held up Bakuda, or what was left of her. She had long since gone unconscious. I was actively forcing the heart to pump now. I needed Panacea, fast. I made sure that Abyssal just stood there, holding Bakuda, not making any threatening moves.

With my actual body, I walked up to the front lines, hoping nobody panicked and sparked a fight.

"Eunoia! Stay back! We don't know who this cape is, but he's working with villains!" Glory Girl shouted.

Since nobody seemed to recognized the mangled, bloody mess that was Bakuda, I decided to clue them in.

"BAKUDA," his low, bassy voice boomed out.

"Huh? Wait, really? _That's _Bakuda? What the hell did he do to her?" Glory Girl exclaimed. She didn't lower her guard.

"Why bring her here? If he wants to claim the bounty, he needs to go to the Protectorate, not the hospital..." Laserdream said.

"Well, she definitely looks like she needs medical attention," I said. "I'll check it out." I walked forward, too suddenly for any of them to stop me. I just hoped that I wasn't being suspiciously reckless.

I made Abyssal kneel down and lower Bakuda in front of me. Hopefully that move would make them understand he wasn't hostile. I put my hand on Bakuda, and didn't bother injecting any more nanobots. I just kept the bots that Abyssal had inside of her already keep doing what they were doing. I just faked a few moves like I was doing some readings with my partly-broken healer costume.

Abyssal simply stepped back and dissolved away in front of all the witnesses. I didn't need him any more.

"She's got some kind of wiring and tech around her heart! I can keep it beating for now, but we need Panacea! And a bomb squad!" I explained to everyone.

* * *

**Author's Note**:

Well, that's all for Bakuda. Not sure if I made Taylor a little too brutal, but hey, she got to see the victims personally.


	23. Explosion 5

Explosion 5

Even though Bakuda didn't have a bomb implanted inside herself, nobody wanted to take the risk that my nanobots missed something. I couldn't blame them. Shielder had protected Panacea as much as he could, opening up only a tiny sliver of his shield for her to touch Bakuda and heal the mad bomber. She didn't heal her fully - just enough to keep her heart pumping but in a coma. Even Panacea couldn't prove that Bakuda didn't have more than just a trigger in her - the mechanism tracking her heartbeat was inorganic, and nobody could say for sure that it didn't have a compact explosive inside of it.

After that, she was ushered as far away as possible while Shielder stayed behind to protect me. Then I had to perform open-heart surgery under expert guidance. There was a heart surgeon on my left and a bomb squad captain to my right. Through a robotic camera, the surgeon advised me on where it was safe to move my bots, then confer with the bomb squad member. I publicly displayed a control range of about thirty feet, which wasn't that much further than what I had already been doing often at the hospital. With Shielder, Glory Girl, and an armored truck in between us and Bakuda, I felt safe enough.

"Right there, that wire connecting to the SA node," the surgeon said.

"That's the main wire monitoring the heartbeat," the bomb squad member said. "We need to connect the backup battery and pulse generator to that line at the same time..."

"Um... which one's the the SA node?" I asked meekly. I felt stupid, but the last thing I wanted to do was accidentally blow up the city because I connected or cut the wrong wires. I hadn't been doing much heart surgery, since Panacea could take care of those easily. had been learning a lot about brains at the hospital, but not much about hearts. And remembering the actual names of things had been lower on my priorities than remembering what they looked and felt like through my bots.

"Right there," the surgeon said, pointing at the screen.

"So should I connect the wire before I cut, or...?"

"Connect it first," the bomb squad guy said.

"After," the surgeon said. They looked at each other and started another heated discussion. I just sat back and did nothing, hoping they would sort things out between them.

"There's literally a two-heartbeat cutoff between losing and regaining the signal! We can't risk that!" the bomb squad guy was saying.

"And connecting beforehand could potentially shock her heart! It could send her into cardiac arrest right away. What if the generator doesn't produce the right pattern? Clearly the other wires at the AV node and ventricular apex are monitoring her, too."

Those kinds of discussions went on for a good ten minutes.

"Okay, change of plans. We want you to connect these four wires so we can get a better reading on what those wires are actually monitoring..."

* * *

It took a while, but we managed to defuse Bakuda without any further explosions. After the heart surgery was done, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Except me and Shielder. While the bomb squad carted away the now-removed dead-man's-switch, now running off a system that simulated a heartbeat, I saw more people approaching. They were being escorted by the PRT and under the guard of a lot of troopers wearing very heavy armour.

Most of them were Asian. They looked tired, sick, and scared. They stopped down the street, in a cordoned-off area beside an already-destroyed building. Dauntless approached me. "Hello, Eunoia. We would like you or Panacea to help us with with a major issue."

I sighed, knowing my day was going to get even longer. "Let me guess, you need me to help you remove the bombs that were implanted?"

Dauntless nodded. "So you know about it already? Do you think you can?"

Lady Photon and Brandish both crossed their arms. "Panacea won't be doing this. We can't put her at that kind of risk."

I nodded vigorously, despite my own fatigue. I didn't want Panacea anywhere near these guys. I technically didn't either, but I could do the surgery remotely. I just needed to decide how far was "reasonable" without giving away that I could actually control bots across the city. While it would have been preferable to put as much distance between us, I would have to settle for "reasonably safe." I remembered how powerful the blast was from the first guy who had run into the ER. "I can try. Use the same setup we did on Bakuda."

Shielder nodded. "Don't worry. I can go for a while longer, too."

I was really the only one suited for it right now. No doctor would want to operate on a bomb. We didn't have remote surgical tools like those fancy hospitals in New York or Berlin, and bringing more bombs into the hospital was the last thing anyone wanted at the moment. I was the only one who could perform surgery from behind a bombproof shield from a tent. Armsmaster could probably assemble his own version of the remote robotic surgery tools, but it wouldn't be ready nor approved by the Protectorate yet. And Armsmaster wasn't a surgeon, no matter how good his Tinkertech actually was. We didn't have the time.

Naturally, actual surgeons stood beside me watching from a camera mounted to a bomb-disposal robot. Finding the bomb was easy, as most of them had large, messy sutures that hadn't healed yet. After an injection of local anesthetic, I started my work. I used my bots to inspect the bombs from the inside, in order to make sure there weren't any triggers linked to the skin. If we could just cut the bombs out, that would simplify things a lot.

I didn't see anything that looked like a switch. No additional wires, springs, or plates that were linked to the skin. If there were any, then they would have been triggered just from the victims moving around. That made extraction much easier.

We pulled the bomb out of the body. I placed it gently into a metal surgical tray beside the victim.

"Is... is that all?" my patient asked. "Are we done?"

"Wait, there's a signal coming from the bomb! Take cover!" Armsmaster shouted, bursting into the clean tent. So much for a sterile surgical environment. He scooped up the bomb into some heavy, reinforced box thing.

A few minutes later, he shouted, "All clear. Looks like there's a temperature sensor, but it's not a detonation signal, only an arming signal. We can reduce the risk if we raise the operating room to body temperature."

"Wait, I still have to clean the wound and stitch it up!" I said. I consulted with the surgeons about what else we needed to do, and followed their directions to finish up with this patient. From here, at least it was normal medical stuff.

Before doing the surgery, I wondered how good of a surgeon Bakuda must have been to implant so many people with explosives. If you thought bombs were her specialty, then she must have been quite a natural genius to also understand medicine that well.

As it turned out, you don't have to be a genius to perform surgery poorly. What potentially started as awe turned into disgust. Bakuda was no genius. Most of these people had deep infections and damaged organs. Some suffered internal bleeding, hematomas, and plenty of inflammation. She just shoved compact bombs inside of people, mostly near the neck and spine, and stitched them back up. If the bombs hadn't killed them, they probably would have died of septic shock or kidney failure within a week anyway.

I was amazed at the fact that she hadn't killed herself with that dead-man's switch. The mass-produced bomb implants weren't done as expertly as Bakuda's own heart-mounted detonation switch, which turned out to be a modified pacemaker.

While we waited to re-sterilize the operating room for the next patient, Armsmaster had quickly analyzed the extracted explosive from the first patient. The bombs were made for maximum boom in minimal space, and were detonated with a remote switch. They automatically armed themselves if they were removed from the body, detected through the temperature sensor, but someone still had to detonate them manually. So it hadn't been completely by accident that the man had blown up the hospital. That just made me more angry, but at this point we already had what remained of Bakuda. The PRT and Police Department could handle the rest of the ABB, and whoever else held detonators.

After we figured out the details, we were able to get into a routine, almost like an assembly line. I extracted the bombs, Armsmaster defused them, and the doctors made sure the patient survived the surgery.

Each one was still an involved process that took a long time and a lot of concentration. Even as I extracted the first few bomb implants, the group just kept getting larger. I think I saw at least fifty people that I had to go through with more arriving as the ABB conscripts, and plenty of Empire prisoners, got rounded up from the city.

I was going to need a lot of coffee.

By the time I got through the tenth one, I was feeling pretty drained. Thank goodness nobody could see that I had closed my eyes through my costume's visor, but my concentration was wavering and I was feeling mentally fatigued.

_Why not take a rest?_ one of my brains suggested to myself.

_Yeah, we can concentrate on this stuff for you, _another said. _We've all been paying attention._

It wasn't as if I actually needed to use my body for this... it was purely bots doing the work. Maybe I could just take a quick nap...

* * *

I couldn't believe that actually worked.

Aside from having to talk to the surgeons every once in a while, I could basically take short, fifteen minute breaks while my other brains did the work on the patient.

Maybe I could actually keep this up, and rescue everyone immediately. It would take all night... and even tomorrow, but with this kind of routine, I could handle it.

_Don't worry, we got this, _I told myself.

_Yeah, there's almost a thousand of us already. We can work in shifts. No problem._

_Take care of meself, real body. It's the only way the rest of us keep existing._

At least, now I knew I could actually get the sleep I needed every night without worrying about lost productivity.

* * *

I think I must have slept all day after doing all the surgeries. I woke up when the sky was orange; I couldn't tell if it was dawn or dusk. It didn't matter. I felt like I deserved the rest. I was hungry, though, so I blearily wandered downstairs to grab a snack. The smell of cheesy goodness greeted my nostrils.

Dad was already there, cooking lasagna. "Taylor! You're up! Oh thank goodness... I was so worried when I heard about how many people with bombs were being brought to you..." Dad said, giving me a hug. He didn't let go for a while. "I... I couldn't bear it when I lost Annette... I can't bear to lose you, too."

"It's okay, Dad. I'm fine," I said. "My bots are pretty versatile, and Shielder made sure I was protected."

"You know I can't help but be scared. I'm just glad to have you back here, in this house. You ready to have dinner, sleepyhead?" My stomach answered for me with a growl.

The lasagna was good... not as good as Mom used to make it. I think that was why dad made it, though. It was mom's signature dish. I guess he wanted the reminder because he had been afraid of losing me, too.

After dinner, I was wondering what other people were saying about the whole event. I hadn't had any time to check the news or the forums since the hospital and the rest of town had been exploding.

* * *

**Topic: Bakuda taken down by New Cape!**  
**In: Capes ► New Capes ► North America ****USA East**

**►CorgiJockey  
**Posted on 29 April 2011:  
It's confirmed that Brockton Bay has _another_ new cape, and damn, you won't forget them. See pics here. So the entire city's on lockdown, the PRT is under siege so they can't afford to send any of their heroes out. Bakuda tried to hold the entire city hostage - either the PRT lets Lung go or she blows up bombs hidden around the city. A few days into the standoff, this new cape walks in to the hospital holding a completely mangled Bakuda. Ding dong, the witch is dead.

**►ErrHed**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Holy shit, he's huge. Maybe he triggered during the bombings?

**► Zomboni**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Damn. Look at the third picture. He's all like, "No, you don't get to die unless I let you die." Rumor has it he was forcing Bakuda's heart to keep beating until he got to Panacea.

**►Bagrat** (Veteran Member)(The Guy in the Know)  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
ErrHed I've heard possible reports that he may have been around about a week before the bombings, as a member of the Undersiders. No concrete or reliable testimonies though.

**► -==Gradius==-**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
What can you tell us about him? Name? Ratings? Hero or fed-up villain?

**►CapeGrape**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Zomboni not that far from the truth. She had a dead man's switch on her heart. Eunoia figured it out.

**►Bagrat** (Veteran Member)(The Guy in the Know)  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
We don't know. But he arrived riding one of Hellhound's dogs, so possibly a villain and possibly a member of the Undersiders. That group took credit for hitting an E88 site before the whole Bakuda incident with no heroes involved or official reports. He dissolved into dust right in front of dozens of witnesses at the hospital after handing over Bakuda, so a Breaker rating is obvious there. Tentative name is Shadow Knight. Voice sounds artificial.

**►CorgiJockey** (Original Poster)  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Definitely one of Hellhound's dogs. So, Undersiders seem to be recruiting?

**►Jacquengel**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
They were obviously working with U+L a month ago. Maybe they just do a lot of one-off partnerships.

**►Zomboni**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Oh dear lord I hope not. The results speak for themselves, don't they? He took down a Tinker in their workshop. I hope he isn't a villain...

**►o0O-Jaynor-O0o**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
He sure looks like a villain.

**►SpecificProtagonist**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
He looks hot.

**►Wangarang**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
He's working with villains.  
Looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, hangs out with ducks...

**►imfiringmahlazor**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
He took down a villain and helped save the city, so I'm calling hero.

**►Zomboni**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Don't jinx us, jaynor. Brockton Bay has enough villains...

**►Point_me_ _the_Sky** (Verified Cape)  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
I almost thought he was a villain. Was ready to punch him out until Eunoia ran out there.

**►Zomboni**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Hey, does this mean Shadow Knight's going to get the full bounty? That's massive, it usually takes a team to take out a Tinker inside their lair.

**_End of page. Jump to page: 1, __2__, __3__, __4__. Next Page_**

* * *

After working through all those surgeries and bomb defusals, the bounty on Bakuda had been the last thing on my mind. In fact, I had completely forgotten about it until someone mentioned it online. I supposed it was only fair that I shared the cut with the Undersiders. I looked up online how I could collect the bounty - the money I had originally stolen from the Merchants was running out. Even dividing the prize five ways, two hundred thousand dollars went a long way. Not only that, maybe it would be a chance to officially register as a hero, and give them the proper name instead of everyone calling him Shadow Knight.

I guess I had been running with the Undersiders too much lately. I needed to do some proper hero-ing with him. People needed to know he was independent and not a member of the Undersiders.

I searched for other threads where my name was showing up.

* * *

**Topic: Eunoia Sets World Record for Surgeries Performed (maybe?)**  
**In: News and Events ► North America ► USA East**

**►Wakkamole**  
Posted on 29 April 2011:  
Ok, I know that world records set by capes are always going to be questionable whether or not they actually count. But I think this one might be eligible. Long story short - before Bakuda's siege on Brockton Bay, she took a ton of people hostage, implanted bombs in their bodies, and forced them to fight for the ABB. At the end of it, I think there were a total of 62 conscripts who survived and needed the bombs removed.

Unlike Panacea, Eunoia is not strictly a healer. She's a Tinker who just happens to have tools useful for medicine. She's learning and being trained in medicine like a normal person.

So, those 62 people with bombs in their bodies? Eunoia removed all of them, with the help of Shielder (in case something went wrong), Dr. Vanderson supervising, and Cpt. Lestat also supervising (bomb squad). She did all of them in under 24 hours, with the help of the rest of the Brockton Bay General Hospital staff.

That's gotta count for a record, right?

**►|||1llII||1|**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
I dunno, doesn't medical tinkering still count as a cape power though? I don't think it counts.

**►DaUsualSuspect**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
If it counts as a cape power, then Panacea's got her beat. She's healed a person a minute during Endbringer fights.

**►BeGentleImNew** (Veteran poster)  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
I thought powers aren't eligible for world records?

**►Tiedieded**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Don't be so negative, 11l1l. It's still an amazing achievement.

**►|||1llII||1|**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
I wasn't saying it wasn't impressive. I'm just saying it falls under cape powers, so it doesn't count as a world record.

**►|||1llII||1|**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
BeGentleImNew Exactly!

**►Queueueuew**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
DaUsualSuspect, does Panacea's healing count as surgery? She doesn't have to cut someone open and sew them back up again, but she's done stuff that normally would require surgery.

**►DaUsualSuspect**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
That's kind of splitting hairs, isn't it?

**►Queueueuew**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
When there are world records for most bubbles blown while holding a spider in your mouth, I don't think having separate categories for "healing" and "surgery" is too much.

**►silvermann**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Hey don't you disrespect spider-in-mouth bubble blowers, it's right behind underwater basket weaving on the ocho league

**►Wakkamole**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Queueue seriously? I have to look that up.

And I think this is part of why she should get the record. Most healers just bypass the whole surgery thing. Eunoia actually had to go through the whole process like other surgeons, she just got to use better tools to do it.

**►CapeGrape**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Well, if we're talking about capes who cut people up and put them back together again, what's Bonesaw's record?

**►CorgiJockey**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
CapeGrape oh god don't joke about that shit

**►_-YoY-_**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
CapeGrape aaaaaaand I'm suddenly not interested in who's done the most surgeries any more

**►Wombocombo**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
are villains even allowed to have records?

**►CapeGrape**  
Replied on 29 April 2011:  
Why not? A records a record

**_End of page. Jump to page: 1, __2__. Next Page_**

* * *

That was _also_ where I decided to stop reading. I know most people weren't taking it seriously, but I didn't want to think about being compared to one of the Slaughterhouse Nine. It was nice that people were actually paying attention to the things I did, though. And not a single person had the slightest suspicion that Eunoia and Abyssal were the same person.

I felt like taking a break today. Hell, I didn't think anyone would argue that I deserved it.

While I was still being lazy at home, I received a text from Tattletale. The Undersiders were going to pick up their share of the bounty money for Bakuda's capture. In addition to the PRT's kill order and prize, there had been some fairly large contributions from several of the corporations based around Brockton Bay, including Medhall and Fortress Construction, as well as many other smaller donations that added up. In total, the bounty had been increased nearly one and a half million, because there were quite a few vested interests in ending Bakuda's reign of terror quickly.

While I wasn't exactly hard on money at the moment, even one-fifth of the prize was almost three hundred grand. Nothing to sneeze at. I didn't know what I would do with the money just yet (or how to transfer it from Abyssal to _me_ without raising tons of red flags) but it would be better to have the money on hand, rather than not. Windfalls like this didn't come often.

At least I didn't have to get out of the house.

Using the bots in the street, I took a peek around the area of the PRT building, as well as the streets between it and the Undersider's base. It didn't take long to find the group of them walking in broad daylight. Bitch had her dogs with her, leashed and in normal dog form. They were mostly sticking to side streets and alleys, not doing anything villainous, but they had their masks on. I formed Abyssal not too far from them and joined up.

"Hey big guy, nice of you to join us," Tattletale said with a wave.

Abyssal nodded and quietly walked with them. Their costumes weren't the flashiest, but people were been giving them a wide berth. With Abyssal in the mix, I just hoped no overzealous PRT agent or hero would try to come arrest them.

Thankfully, the only people who gave us trouble were right near the entrance of the building. We didn't even make it to the gift shop when the front door slammed shut and steel shutters closed down over it. I could see some PRT agents above, aiming containment foam sprayers down at us. Over a loudspeaker, someone said, "State your purpose!"

"Seriously? We have an appointment. This is supposed to be a truce!" Tattletale shouted back. More quietly, she whispered to Grue, "Are you recording this?"

"Yup," Grue confirmed, holding his phone out.

"I almost _want_ to see the shitstorm that'll come from them breaking the truce," Regent chuckled. He, too, was recording with his phone.

Fortunately, his wishes didn't come true. After a short pause, the shutters opened again and the doors unlocked. In the foyer of the building was a much larger number of PRT troops, though. In front of them was Armsmaster.

"Tattletale. Grue. Hellhou-" he began.

"Bitch," Bitch snarled at him. Her dogs, sensing her irritation, started growling as well.

"The PRT designation has her listed as-" Armsmaster explained.

"Well we don't work for the PRT, or did you not notice?" Tattletale said with a fake smile. "Either you get her name right, or we all get to choose each other's names, Bluebeard."

Armsmaster scowled. "I'll look into updating the database. Regent. Shadow Knight..."

"**ABYSSAL**." His voice rumbled through the lobby of the PRT building. I could even sense some of the shelves in the gift shop rattle. It certainly caught everyone's attention. Thankfully, the PRT troops' fingers weren't that itchy, and nobody got sprayed with foam.

"I will make sure all the names will be corrected," Armsmaster said, clearly annoyed. "Now, if you wouldn't mind, we will need to verify some details to validate your claim on the bounty. The truce is in effect, we will not attempt to unmask you or arrest you for any previous crimes during this visit. Right this way, please..."

He led us to a room that I had been familiar with. Ugh. At least this time I wasn't alone. There were multiple chairs and we all sat around the table, but the interrogation room still wasn't any friendlier.

On that note, I remembered the few bots that I still had stuck inside the ventilation of the building. Man, they were _old_. Practically an ancient design by my standards. I wanted to replace them, but for now I wanted to keep a tighter lid on Abyssal's bots. Didn't want to give away the secret to his powers. I didn't even have his "smoke" aura on right now; I made sure I left no traces of bots from him that could be picked up later by Armsmaster.

I did use those old bots to listen in on what was happening... which wasn't much. Mostly what was already to be expected; people scrambling to have countermeasures ready against the Undersiders _just in case_ (talk about a paper-thin truce), people confirming and securing the money, others still assessing damages from the ABB and Bakuda, people responding to Empire activity, and so on.

Eventually Armsmaster came back to join us, flanked by four PRT troops. Not enough to outnumber us, but just perfectly even. Probably some kind of symbolic gesture. Either way, the room was getting pretty crowded.

"Let me do the talking," Tattletale whispered to her team.

"Alright then. What were each of you doing at five p.m. on the twenty-seventh of April..." Armsmaster began.

* * *

The phone rang. As in, my home phone. Dad answered it, only to shout upstairs to me. "Taylor! It's for you! New Wave!"

"Thanks, dad!" I shouted as I picked up the phone. "Hi! What's up?"

It was Vicky on the line. "So, the Protectorate and Wards need some healing. I'm taking Ames over there, you want to join?"

Crap. I specifically wanted to stay home so that I wouldn't be associated with Abyssal, not be in the same building as him twice in as many days! Having him come to the hospital was a necessity, but now?

"Uh... I'm not sure if I'd be of much help..." I said, trying to find a lame excuse _not_ to meet more of the city's heroes.

"Come on, it'll be great! They'll love you! I'm coming to pick you up in ten, be ready!" Aaaaaaand that was Vicky. Of course I didn't really have a choice. But maybe I could turn this to an advantage? Abyssal was already there, in a room, with cameras, and had been there for a while now. Maybe this would be a good thing, as long as I could act well enough.

* * *

I knew Amy dropped by the Protectorate or PRT bases to heal the heroes after major battles, and Bakuda certainly counted. While the Protectorate certainly had a lot of advanced (and Tinkertech) medical resources available, nothing could quite match Panacea's... perfection. Even when the heroes were mostly better, the Protectorate needed its capes in top form as soon as possible so they could go on patrols. Even minor injuries like a sprained ankle could be deadly, and given how outnumbered the heroes were compared to the villains, they couldn't afford to have their members sititng on the sidelines. Apparently they had a standing contract with New Wave for Panacea to do some "touch-up" healing once a week, and after every major incident.

I just hadn't been called since none of them had major brain issues... supposedly. Still, I wondered if they actually needed me, or if Vicky was just being a good friend and teammate inviting me along.

"Ready to go?" Panacea said as Glory Girl dropped the two of us off at the building.

"Yeah," I said. Abyssal was still in the interrogation room, while Tattletale was explaining all the details. I think they were still trying to clear up the various effects of the bombs and the order they struck in order to explain the state of all the bodies the investigators were finding under the collapsed building.

Meanwhile, we were escorted up to their little infirmary. It only had a few stretchers and basic medical supplies, plus a few Tinkertech things, presumably built and maintained by Armsmaster. Two of the stretchers had severely injured PRT agents; Panacea went to them first.

A few minutes later, Miss Militia walked in. She looked like she had gotten some burns along the side of her body; other injuries had mostly been patched up and covered with bandages. "Panacea! Good to see you here, and thanks again for coming."

"It's no big deal," Panacea said. "Were these two the worst ones?" she asked, indicating the men she just healed.

Miss Militia gave a heavy sigh. "Of the survivors, yes. If I could get a touch-up..."

Panacea touched her, and a few seconds later, Miss Milita was ripping off the bandages and showing smooth unblemished skin underneath. "You're a real miracle worker, Panacea. We won't waste your time. Instead of giving the grand tour today, we'll have everyone come to the infirmary. Faster than pushing all the paperwork for Eunoia's security clearance," she explained. She extended her hand. "Nice to see you. Again, I'd like to apologize for the issues with Shadow Stalker. We're currently conducting an internal investigation."

"Really? I see," I said flatly. Internal investigations didn't exactly fill me with confidence. What were the chances that the Protectorate found themselves not guilty of any wrongdoing? I didn't hate Miss Militia; she was one of the most genuine heroes in the Protectorate. But one good apple didn't fix a basket of rot. "Well, I'm glad you weren't hurt too badly." I don't think I could have said the same if Sophia had been caught in one of those explosions, though.

Miss Militia nodded. "As soon as we knew bombs were involved, we took extra precautions. The Wards were kept away from the bomb sites completely. And... well, Bakdua seemed to do more damage to her own people than to us."

I scowled at the memory of all the surgeries I had to do. That woman had been completely insane. She had probably been more damaging to the ABB than the Empire or the Protectorate.

"Yeah... we've seen it firsthand," I said.

"So who's in tonight?" Panacea asked.

"Assault and Velocity are here too. Dauntless and Battery are out on patrol tonight, and Armsmaster is... busy with several things right now." I could see the disapproval in her eyes as she mentioned the last hero.

"Really? Where is he? He tends to jump right into the thick of things," Panacea said while she put her hand on Miss Militia.

"If he isn't conducting more investigation into Bakuda's bombs, then he's fixing the Rig. Oni Lee did a number on it; he insisted he get it back to tip-top shape before _sleeping_. He also says he's getting inspiration for his own Tinkertech from the bombs, so he also wants to do what Tinkers do... He's running on painkillers and stimulants at the moment."

"I... might need to take a look at him later," Panacea said. "Well, you're good to go. No brain injuries or shrapnel. Sorry, nothing for you to do, Eunoia." I just shrugged.

Miss Militia sighed again. "Armsmaster insists he's 'optimized' his health. Thanks for that, Panacea. I'll send Assault in."

She was out for only a minute when Assault came walked in. Aside from his usual costume, he also had a briefcase.

"Sorry, Panacea. No time for chitchat. There's an important handover I have to do in a few minutes."

I checked in on the interrogation room, and yes, Lisa was finishing up the story already. She naturally omitted what happened exactly, using a bit of plausible deniability to her advantage. She did leave in enough detail that it couldn't be faked, detail that could be corroborated. Naturally, everything lined up with what the Protectorate had found when they arrived to clean up the aftermath. Short of taking selfies with Bakuda, it was as close to confirmed as anyone could get that the Undersiders, and Abyssal, had been the one to take her down.

"Thanks Panacea. You're an angel," Assault said.

I actually had a patient to heal. One. Yet another PRT trooper who had suffered under a bomb blast, but one with weird effects. Panacea healed what she could, and I had to fix up a few ruptured blood vessels in his brain. No wonder he had been feeling headaches.

While I worked on this patient, I watched Assault enter the interrogation room through Abyssal, this time holding a briefcase. He took a look at Abyssal and whistled.

"So... nice suit," he said. "I don't suppose you give many hugs, do you?"

Abyssal simply remained completely still as a statue.

"I suppose not. If you need a hug, just let us know. Hugs are free!" He continued to joke.

"Assault. This is a formal bounty handover," Armsmaster reminded him.

"Alright, alright. Strong, silent type eh? Maybe we can be partners. I'm the weak and loud type, we totally cover each other's bases." Assault continued to attempt to get a reaction. I personally tried to hide my giggle while Velocity was being healed by Panacea.

"Assault..." Armsmaster warned.

He sighed and put the suitcase on the table and opened it up. "One million, four hundred and twenty-two thousand dollars in unmarked, non-sequential bills."

"Now that's what I'm talking about," Regent said.

"Damn, that's a lot of dough." Even Grue couldn't remain completely stoic at the sight of that much cash.

"It's up to you how to divide the cash. Would you like to divide it now, or decide amongst yourselves later?"

"I think... it's up to the big guy here," Grue said, turning to Abyssal. "I'll be honest, he did do most of the work."

Tattletale got up and motioned for Abyssal to bend down. She whispered into his "ear" so quietly, even my own bots could barely hear her. _"Please, please, just split it evenly five ways. If you feel like you deserve more, I can make it up to you and more, later."_

What the heck was she getting at? Not that I had a problem with splitting it evenly, but why was it so important to her? Still, nearly three hundred grand was more than enough to solve most of our family problems. Beyond that was just greedy, especially when I still had methods to make more money myself. I had no reason to really deny her that if she needed it so badly.

Abyssal nodded to her.

"We'll divide it up five ways evenly," Tattletale declared. They counted out the stacks of bills and sorted things out with the heroes as witnesses. It was probably something they did to prevent potential infighting later on. They also had us sign forms stating the exact amount of the bounty we had taken, and so on. Funny, none of us had ever thought to actually have a cape signature before, so we mostly just wrote our cape names down in sloppy handwriting.

"About fuckin' time. Let's go," Regent said, as soon as the money was distributed. Bitch grunted in agreement. The Undersiders filed out quickly.

"Wait up, Abyssal. We'd like to invite you into the Wards or Protectorate, depending on your age. Solo heroes tend not to last very long in this city; we would be able to help you with backup and training," Assault offered. "Or if you just want to come in for power testing?"

Yeah, no chance of that happening right now. I had him shake his head, and walk out as well. Assault and Armsmaster escorted the group out.

Back in the infirmary, we were all done as well. Panacea had done an excellent job as usual, while I felt mostly useless in comparison. We, too, were packing up and stepping out. What a coincidence. Then again, I could still use this.

The elevator doors opened, and we were just managed to catch sight of the Undersiders about to leave by the front door.

"You!" Glory Girl was the first to react. Her aura flared, and I was suddenly afraid of my friend. "I'm gonna –"

Distantly, one of my other minds seemed to notice my emotional reaction to her aura.

_Huh. Why so afraid?_

_Is that what being Mastered feels like? Interesting._

The calmer, objective analysis by my distant, unaffected brains did actually help me deal with the effect.

She paused when the PRT troops escorting the Undersiders turned on her instead.

"Whoa, Glory Girl. We're currently under truce. They're picking up the bounty for taking down Bakuda," Assault told her.

Glory Girl seethed, crossing her arms, but didn't do anything more than glare at the Undersiders. I didn't realize she still had such a huge grudge from the bank incident. I couldn't think of any other time they had ever interacted. Tattletale, thankfully, kept her mouth shut and quickly hurried out the door, even yanking Regent out with her before he could taunt my teammate.

Abyssal followed not far behind them, coming down the hallway. He was definitely quiet for his size, and Glory Girl shrieked a little when she finally noticed him right beside her.

I chuckled. Still, I needed a bit of my acting chops here. Thank goodness for separate, cloned brains. I didn't think I would be able to do this if I had to concentrate on both myself and Abyssal and act like we were really separate people with only one brain.

I waved.

"Man, that guy is seriously giving me the creeps. How can you be so friendly with him?" she whispered to us while watching Abyssal nod at me.

"He's probably nicer than he looks," I said. I made Abyssal walk towards us.

"Oh shit, Eunoia, be careful. What does he want?"

He opened up his pack of money and handed me two stacks of bills. Exactly $20,000. "Oh, wow. Thanks," I said, trying to look as surprised and excited as I could. Now I had an excuse for why I would be able to spend a whole ton of extra money in the short-term, while I worked out how to spend the rest of the money later.

I decided, in order to be less suspicious, and to be nice, to give Panacea some of the reward too. Abyssal handed two stacks to her as well.

"What's this for?" Panacea asked, looking immediately suspicious. I suppose people occasionally thanked her or gave her gifts for her work, but she had obviously never healed Abyssal before.

"**BAKUDA**," Abyssal replied. After all, when it came to "defusing" the villain, she had been just as important as me at keeping the villain alive long enough.

Abyssal nodded again, and then walked out the door. I made sure he went far out of sight, I sent him disappearing into the shadows. The money, I separated out into individual bills and used my bots to transport it through the sewers towards my house.

"Damnit, I was hoping to get some too," Glory Girl said with a pout as we left the building. "Well, next shopping trip is on you guys!"

Panacea and I groaned in unison.

* * *

**Author's Note**: After heroing comes healing.

This is a chapter that I felt like I had to rewrite several times, ugh. Minor ideas and issues that kept messing up with the plot flow. Still not completely satisfied but it serves its purpose for now, I guess.


	24. Interlude 5: Coil

Interlude 5: Coil

Coil didn't hate his power. After all, it was certainly better than having no power at all. He wouldn't be where he was without it. Nor did he regret his purchase – he had specifically asked for a stable formula, even if it wasn't as powerful. If he had turned into one of those _freaks_, all of his plans would have gone down the drain, regardless of how strong the power actually was. No, he had gotten exactly what he had asked for. His power gave him more possibilities. It gave him options he didn't have.

It was the lack of options that irked him. Being confined. Working within someone else's limits. If the PRT had been willing to truly commit to eliminating villainy and crime, they had the manpower to do it. But they were too obsessed with rules and image. The entire reason he himself had chosen to become a self-styled villain – he had a city to clean up, and he needed to be free of the shackles of bureaucracy.

With only two timelines to work with and a city to save, though, he had once again found himself in a limiting position. He couldn't afford to run a single parallel timeline for days or weeks to ensure things went well. He needed to finalize his decisions regularly and hope they hadn't tripped some silent bomb or time-delay destruction. His pet helped with that, but when the stakes involved the entire city, both action _and_ inaction were risks.

After all, he couldn't be the city's saviour if the city itself went down in flames.

He'd used every asset he had at his disposal. A major donation to the Kill Order bounty would bring more firepower against the mad bomber; his mercenary contracts could even potentially assure that the money would come straight back to him.

One thing he didn't want was for the Undersiders to take down Bakuda and claim the prize money for themselves. Money was still a simple and strong motivator for the team, but if they were fully satisfied he wouldn't be able to so easily convince them to take on riskier jobs.

However, in his other timeline when he recalled the Undersiders and sent in mercenary teams to finish the job... it had ended in utter disaster. The entire city, destroyed. Hundreds of tinkertech bombs exploding across the entire city.

Two timelines. One an obvious failure.

He had no choice but to allow the Undersiders to take the prize.

* * *

Clearly, Coil needed to investigate Abyssal more. Where had Tattletale met him? He couldn't track all her movements and communications; her Thinker power was almost a match for his. Thankfully, the PRT did have some files he had access to.

Some of the Wards had encountered him on the street, and they'd recorded a full video of the encounter. Of course, they had an after-action report as well, but it was always good to judge things on his own before introducing any PRT bias.

Kid Win and Aegis had been performing an aerial patrol. The good thing about thi was that it allowed Coil to survey the level of damage around the city visually. Reports and statistics didn't always give an intuitive or complete sense of the situation.

Bakuda's destruction hadn't simply destroyed the city. Normal bombs would have just destroyed buildings, leaving rubble to be cleared. Some of Bakuda's bombs had done that, but many more had left the city and infrastructure in a questionably fragile state.

When one-tenth of the load-bearing columns of an apartment had been turned from concrete into glass, nobody really knew whether the building could be repaired, or how to demolish it. When an overpass had been flash-frozen to to liquid helium temperatures, it wasn't something engineers had accounted for when it was designed, and nobody knew how to check if it still retained its original strength. Time-stop bubbles, localized earthquakes, and corrosive clouds all left aftereffects on the city's infrastructure that made people afraid to go to work or walk the streets.

It was one of the reasons that the Wards were only allowed aerial routes for now. Too many buildings were at risk for collapse. That didn't stop the criminals, especially the Empire and Merchants. Since ABB had mostly been crippled and were undergoing plenty of internal strife at the moment, the other major gangs were going on a looting spree. Criminals had a much lower standard of safety than rescue crews and police did, after all.

"_Kid Win to console, possible looters spotted. Five total. No capes identified. Are we clear to engage?"_

The young Ward's visor cam picked up a small group of people sneaking through the alleyway.

"_Console to delta patrol, confirm your location first."_

"_West Hunt Street and Fifth Avenue."_

"_Negative to engage. Stay back, observe, and collect evidence only. There's a known damaged building there, and you're outnumbered. The BBPD has been notified."_

Coil watched as the criminals moved from the shadows. The video quality was quite good, probably enhanced with Armsmaster's tech. The video file he was watching had already been enhanced and cleaned up before archiving. Combined with the fact that he was expecting an encounter with Abyssal (given the after-action report), he knew what to look for. Even then, it was hard to spot.

It was small shift in the shadows that didn't quite line up with the movements of any of the people, or the light sources, in the video. It was even more subtle than what Shadow Stalker often did in her patrols. The shadows grew, and didn't shrink, despite nothing being there. Interesting.

The pair of Wards altered position to maintain silent observation of the criminals. They certainly hadn't noticed the unusual shadows. They were mostly focused on the unpowered gang members. By their appearance and chatter, they were likely Empire members.

Their target was quite clear. On the building they were walking to, part of the wall had been turned to glass. The opposing building had taken most of the damage, but that one was extremely dangerous and at risk of collapse. The PRT was overly cautious with the Wards, that building was the entire reason they couldn't engage, even against unpowered individuals. Crowbars and sledgehammers were no match for even Kid Win's technology or Aegis's power.

The criminals smashed through the glass wall with their tools. They wasted no time making their way inside as soon as they had a large enough opening that didn't leave them cutting themselves on broken glass.

At this point in the video, it was a little more clear to see the shadows move. Again, with the broken glass glittering on camera, it would have been easy to think it was a trick of the light. But with the benefit of video enhancement and post-encounter debriefing, it was now obvious that Abyssal was already present in the area, and was tailing the criminals.

They spent a fair amount of time going through the store, some kind of Asian pawn shop. They were probably taking their time to choose the most valuable things they could steal. Meanwhile, just outside of their makeshift entrance, Abyssal appeared in his full glory. Coil noted that, again, the shadows appeared to move, from all directions that collected into a centralized point.

"_Whoa, who is that?"_

"_Crap, it's Shadow Knight."_

"_Official name is Abyssal, actually."_

"_Update, console, we have a rogue cape on scene."_

"_Roger that, keep observing. Do not intervene without Protectorate backup."_

As the looters exited the building, they were suddenly faced with a monstrous, seven-maybe eight-foot-tall knight in vicious-looking armour. The angle of the camera, and lack of good lighting made estimates difficult.

They froze at the sight of him.

Abyssal stepped forward, and the entire alley darkened. It was as had been reported before; he had some kind of Shaker ability. It bore similarities to Grue, but with obviously different effects.

The looters started running and screaming.

Abyssal leaped forward with an impressive show of strength. The angle from above made it hard to esimate, but it appeared that he was able to rise over ten feet in the air. Coil paused the video and referred to the after-action report; yes, Striker 2 was a justified minimum show of strength. Personally he would have rated it higher.

Abyssal had caught up to the slowest one. With one hand, Abyssal smacked the slowpoke across the chest and sent him flying at the wall. There was a loud crack upon impact. He fell down, either unconscious or dead.

"_Delta patrol to console, they've started fighting. We're going to need ambulances. One down so far."_

With the next two, he grabbed each of them by the neck and threw them over his shoulder. These ones hit the ground, conscious but groaning in pain. One-handed lift of grown men, each around a hundred and eighty pounds, by Coil's estimate. About the same as most of his mercenaries, and he didn't think an extra twenty or thirty pounds of gear would make a big difference there, given how casually Abyssal had performed the maneuver.

This was definitely a cape his teams would need specific training for.

Another leap, this time more vertical. Over fifteen feet high at least. He jumped _over_ the men he had just thrown, who were trying to crawl away. The sound of impact on the ground proved he weighed as much as he looked; it was no illusion.

"**SURRENDER**."

One of them pulled a gun. A puny little handgun. With shaking hands, he fired. Again and again and again, until the magazine was completely empty. Sure, he was a poor shot, but Abyssal was so huge, and so close, that there was no chance of missing.

"_Console, we have shots fired. I repeat, shots fired."_

"_Roger that, Delta team. Any casualties?"_

"_...None, I think. No bystanders. Cape is a Brute, it looks like."_

And they were right. Abyssal didn't look like he had even felt the bullets. Coil could only hope he wasn't as resistant to tinkertech laser rifles he had purchased. Abyssal drew his two massive swords. Given his size, and the way he held them, the tips of the swords were scraping both sides of the alley. One side was completely blocked off.

"_Should we jump in?" _Kid Win asked_. "He... looks like he's gonna kill them."_

"_Orders were to stay back. We still don't know the extent of his powers. This is the guy that took out Bakuda, remember," _Aegis reminded his teammate_._

The two remaining gangsters started to run away. Abyssal didn't chase after them quickly, instead following them at a sedate walking pace. Interesting. The body language still seemed to indicate confidence, Coil noted.

Then the gangsters tripped and fell. Not luck, Coil knew. He rewound the video a few seconds and watched again more carefully. The light had darkened, the shadows extended. Something dark wrapped around their legs and tripped them. That explained it.

Add a Shaker power on top of that. He would want to know the range of it – his mercenary teams would _need_ to engage at distance.

Abyssal showed no mercy and little restraint. The criminals were dragged through the glass shards they had left through the alley.

"_That's too much. I think he might actually kill them. Console I'm going to try to distract him. Kid Win, back me up but keep your distance,"_ Aegis said.

"_Console to Aegis, do not engage, I repeat..."_

"_I'm not engaging, I'm just buying time!"_

Aegis flew down to the alley. _"Stop right there!_" he shouted at the cape, while still hovering about thirty feet away.

Abyssal picked up one of the conscious looters by the neck and held him, facing the Wards. Given Abyssal's height, his feet were dangling, blood and glass falling off his body to the ground.

"**CRIMINAL**."

"_Let go of him! They're already down, you don't need to go any further,"_ Aegis advanced cautiously while Kid Win drew his blasters.

"_Let go of me- gghrrrk_!" The looter struggled as Abyssal tightened his grip. "_I'll talk… I'll talk.. We… were looting the place."_

"_We know. We caught it on video," Aegis said. "But that was excessive. Let them go. We'd like you to stay and make a statement, register yourself with..."_

Abyssal shook his head in a way in what looked like annoyance. Then he just dissolved and disappeared. The shadows clearly shifted slightly through the entire alley, giving _some_ indication on how he moved, but it was difficult to track beyond fifty feet away.

Coil closed the video file. He turned to the after-action summary and the PRT's file on Abyssal, of which there wasn't much information. They had tentatively listed him as a member of the Undersiders, which he knew was wrong. Aside from that, their investigations hadn't gone very far. They had no way of finding out his identity. Not exactly a Stranger power, just a byproduct of a full-coverage costume and whatever the Breaker power was.

Still, there was good news from reviewing the video that wasn't in the PRT evaluation. Abyssal was inclined to fight crime, yet unwilling to join the Protectorate. He was inclined to violence, possibly even lethal violence if Bakuda's capture was any indication. That made his unwillingness to work with the Protectorate more understandable. Coil could work with that. In fact, their long-term goals could align quite well, as long as he presented himself as another rogue hero willing to do whatever it took to improve the city.

As dangerous as Abyssal was, there was no need for them to actually fight _against_ each other.

First things first, though. He needed to use his pet to find the best approach.

* * *

"Wake her."

Mr. Pitter took a light taser to the girl, who was faking her sleep. It wouldn't do to let her think she could simply _fake_ her way out of her job, after all.

She yelped, jumping up and scrambling to the far edge of the bed, and pushed herself up against the wall. She didn't cry any more, which Coil liked. Her incessant blubbering had been annoying in the beginning, muddling her responses even when she gave them.

"Answer my questions, pet, and I will let you have your choice of breakfast cereal."

The girl gathered her blanket more tightly. "Two... two questions," she said.

"What are the chances that Abyssal will ally with me if I give the soft sell?" Coil asked.

"Two point seven three percent," she answered quickly.

Coil was rather surprised. That low? Even with the soft route? Strange. Even though he was only intending to send Abyssal against other villains, like the Empire or Merchants... why would he be so unwilling?

Then again, there were always other options.

"What are the chances of a successful hard sell on Abyssal?" he asked. It would certainly take more work, without Abyssal's civilian identity. But he would find it, eventually. Everyone had _something_ he could use, and twist.

"Zero point eight one percent," she responded. "Can... can I have Coco Puffs now? I'm... I'm so hungry..."

Even lower. Why? How? It could mean one of two things; Abyssal had few to no ties left in the world. It was a possible explanation, given how powerful he was, which would correspond to an extreme trigger event. The other possibility was just the opposite – what few ties he cared about, he cared for so strongly that any threat to them instantly made Coil a sworn enemy.

But that didn't make a whole lot of sense, either. If Abyssal cared for something or someone, then Coil could offer additional protection as an ally. No cape could be everywhere at once, watching both their back and their loved ones simultaneously. He had a network. He had something to offer.

And yet, it was still under three percent recruitment chances.

Why?

The only thing he could think of was that he had already been warned against by someone. No matter the recruitment pitch, if Abyssal went in even more distrustful than normal, then he would fail. But who would have already set the mysterious cape against him?

Coil could only think of one person.

"One more question, pet."

"Noooo... I can't, it hurts too much..."

"If you answer one more question, I'll let you have candy."

His pet didn't answer, but that was as good as affirmative. Still a tiny bit of pride left in her, enough that she didn't want to admit she would be swayed. But she would accept, nonetheless.

"If I eliminate Tattletale without Abyssal's knowledge before attempting a soft recruitment, what are the chances of a successful recruitment?"

"Twelve... point... six two?" she answered, clutching her head. "It hurts. It hurts! No more today..."

A marked improvement. He was satisfied for now, he could work out the details later.

"Mr. Pitter, do give my pet her candy now. Not too much, of course. Wouldn't want to spoil her appetite for Coco Puffs."

The girl's caretaker began measuring out the exact dosage as Coil walked out the door. He didn't stay to watch; Mr. Pitter was one of his most trustworthy men.

As he should have known. Tattletale had been both a blessing and a curse. Her power meshed with his almost perfectly, but it inherently prevented him from successfully giving her the soft sell. They were at each other's throats far too often, each trying to sabotage the other's plans.

But now, Tattletale had gone too far. Perhaps she thought she had finally found a way out, or even stage a coup. The cost of keeping her around was starting to outweigh the benefits, and Coil knew when it would be time to start cutting losses. But he could always get at least one nice heart-to-heart chat before they parted ways for good.

* * *

"Oh, Tattletale. I give you so much – money, a home, a team... and all you do is spit in my face," Coil said, looking at the girl with the black hood still covering her head. He knew it was too dangerous for her to get more information about her surroundings, or him, but it was much more satisfying to take out his frustrations in person.

"I don't... I don't know what you're talking about," Tattletale stammered. "We found Bakuda, just like you asked..."

"So you did. And yet, you just advised your entire team to leave town and go solo with the reward money."

"Hey, it was their choice! You know half of them were motivated by money, what did you think would happen when they had enough?"

"You have standing orders to assemble a team, Tattletale. Not break it up. You could have convinced them to stay, easily. And you haven't told me anything about that new cape working with the Undersiders."

"I tried recruiting him. We crossed paths, he just wanted to tag along. He wants to be a hero, so he only helps against other villains!"

Coil knew she was lying. He'd already interrogated Grue, Regent, and Bitch in another timeline. They had said Tattletale had sent some messages from one of her burner phones, and that she had been expecting him. The others were much more helpful, often they didn't even need to be tortured. The carrot worked with them quite often, but Tattletale held grudges.

Tattletale needed the stick.

He pulled out a knife and stabbed her straight into her thigh. She screamed, both in pain and in shock.

"I know you're lying Tattletale. Don't make me do this. Now tell me everything you know about Abyssal."

Instead of telling him anything, Tattletale paused for a while, and then started laughing. "You're going to kill me, aren't you?"

"You're planning on turning Abyssal against me," Coil realized. She had never been so confident under torture before. Either that or she had gone completely insane, which was unlikely. The girl was brash, defiant, and persistent. As annoying as any teenage girl, multiplied by five.

He pulled out his gun and placed the barrel on her shoulder. "I could let you live, Tattletale. Right now, you're only suffering unnecessary pain. Tell me what you know, and you'll live, and I can bring the best doctors here. Otherwise, _this_ becomes permanent." He pulled the trigger. Her shoulder exploded as flesh and bone shattered.

For once, Coil was actually glad that the gunshot's loud bang temporarily deafened him, it helped him ignore Tattletale's annoying voice. But as her screams died down, it wasn't the sound of defeated whimpering that he was expecting.

"I figured you out. I get it now. Why this interrogation session seemed so... unusual, but my power's telling me you've done things like this often," she said. "This isn't real. You can... you can erase this. Go back in time, or something. You've done this before, that's why it's so easy for you to throw away an asset like me. Ha... Ha..." She was still trying her best to laugh in his face in spite of the pain.

She still wasn't giving up the information. And what's more, Coil now knew she was on the verge of uncovering his power, which was too close for comfort. She had figured him out before, usually just before he killed her, but more often than not it ended in a desperate plea. Not this time.

She likely had some kind of contingency plan, possibly a dead-man's switch, maybe some kind of timed release. He knew she wouldn't go down without dragging his operations down with her. He'd need his best hackers and mercenaries to search her home, her phones, her computers. With her power, the amount she knew about his operations, and possibly even his identity, was too much to risk.

Was it New Wave? She had been seen with Eunoia before, on more than one occasion. Yes, New Wave, as a team, was about as powerful as the local Protectorate, possibly even more so. If Tattletale somehow managed to turn all of them on him, it would be a very difficult recovery.

Tattletale was almost a total loss. He'd have to take her out of the equation, but without Abyssal tracing it back to him. If he played this right, it would at least end up in an even trade.

He emptied the gun into Tattletale's head, until there was nothing left but a shower of red dripping from the black hood. He punched her once for good measure, his hand going through the fractured and broken skull like a sponge. His frustrations relieved, he ended the timeline.

* * *

Coil wasn't too worried about the loss of the Undersiders. He could reasonly reclaim a few of them if he wanted to – that is, if his other parahuman team didn't prove their worth. On paper, his more recent acquisition seemed much more powerful, and they were certainly proving themselves. He watched on the security cameras as they walked into base. "Erica, tell the Travellers to place the package in holding cell four."

Coil took his time heading down to meet the figure with a black hood over her head, handcuffed to the chair. He took a seat at the desk opposite her. Coil's personal guards aimed their taser rifles at her before one of them pulled the hood off.

Coil put his elbows on his desk and interlaced his fingers. "Shadow Stalker, also known as Sophia Hess. Congratulations. You're not in prison any more," he said.

"Who the fuck are you?" Sophia snarled. She looked ready to use her power to slip her restraints, but Coil's mercenaries made it clear they were holding high-voltage weaponry pointed straight at her.

"Why, I'm the reason you're free. I thought you'd be more grateful," Coil said.

"This sure as hell doesn't feel like 'free' to me," she said, jiggling the handcuffs against the chair.

"Well, I'm going to give you an offer. It's quite simple. You work for me, you earn some money and freedom. You do a few jobs, I'll let you walk out of here with a lot of cash in your pocket and a new identity. You don't, I'll throw you straight back into prison," Coil said.

"Doesn't sound like much of a choice," Sophia said.

"I'm sure you'll find we actually have much in common," Coil said. "After all, didn't you want to clean up this city, but the PRT only got in the way? Called you a villain, and then threw you away when you didn't play by their rules?"

Sophia glared at him, but said nothing. Good. She was interested.

"I find myself to be in much the same position. They call me a villain, but all I truly want is to clean up this city. End the Empire. Annihilate the ABB. It was one of _my_ teams that took down Bakuda, and yet the PRT was quick to suppress the information and take credit. And they call themselves the forces of good," Coil chuckled. "I could use someone like you. Someone who wants to actually fight crime, bring real justice back to the streets of Brockton Bay. Not people who spend all their time with _image _and _public relations_."

"You for real?" Sophia asked.

"Yes. In fact, far too many terrible people tend to benefit too much from simply having good PR. Did you know, the girl who landed you in prison... she's walking free? People laud her as a hero now."

"WHAT? You're telling me that fucking useless piece of shit Hebert is a _hero?_"

"Exactly. Where is the justice in the world? The truth is, there is no justice but what we make on our own. You won't get it from the PRT. Join me, and we can set things right. Make sure people actually end up where they deserve."

"You ain't shitting me, are you?"

"No, I am not. If you join me, I can give you actual, real weaponry. Not some hobbled toy that's too scary for the gift shops. I can give you targets to kill, like a true warrior should. Righteous kills. Nazis, gangbangers, the scum of the Earth. I can give you _purpose_."

"Quit the movie villain yammering. Let's talk guns. What are you giving me?"

"We can work that out later. First, I need to hear you say it. Employment, or prison?"

"...I'll work for you," Sophia growled out. "But if you're fucking with me..."

Coil turned to one of the mercenaries. "Show her to her room, and bring her the specialty equipment," he said. "Allow her access to the training rooms and gym."

He left before everyone else, and went back to his usual office. He picked up the phone and dialed.

_"Hello, Bryson and O'Malley legal firm."_

"I need to speak with Mr. Bryson. I'm one of his clients."

_"William Bryson speaking."_

"You're speaking to your retirement fund, Mr. Bryson. How is the Hebert case progressing?"

_"Quite well. The girl's receptive, we've worked out the basics and collected some evidence. She's very open about her experience at Winslow and with the PRT. Another meeting or two and we should be ready, and we've got a court date set."_

"Excellent. Your next payment has been transferred. Send me all of her statements and you'll receive the third installment," Coil told him.

_"I have to remind you that this would be a major breach of client privilege laws..."_

"Your beachfront home in Barbados is already waiting, Mr. Bryson. The Bar Association's opinions are worthless if you can retire comfortably at thirty-five."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Man, this chapter took a lot of rewriting. Next chapter might too. Hm.

Another note: One thing I've always had a gripe about with Worm canon, as far as power categories go, is where "super-strength" goes. Worm puts it under Brute. Brute is supposed to be for tough, difficult-to-kill capes. But super strength does not guarantee super toughness, especially in Worm. IMO, super-strength is a Striker ability - for all intents and purposes, super-strength is just a melee-range, touch-based power that lets them move bigger and heavier things than a normal human should.

The secondary excuse is that the power categories aren't actually classifying powers, but how the PRT should expect to respond to them. But that makes just as bad. How does the PRT handle a Brute 5? Bring out the high-power, heavy weapons, or just the thicker handcuffs? One can accidentally kill the cape, the other could accidentally kill the trooper. Both of which defeats the purpose of a quick, short-hand summary.

If super-strength was classified as Striker, though, what would their (basic) response be? Simple. Just like any other Striker: do not approach, do not get into melee range. As a shorthand summary for powers, super-strength simply doesn't make sense being classified in Brute instead of Striker.

So yeah, I just reclassified it for my fic. Just because it makes more sense to me.


	25. Extraction 1

Extraction 1

"Taylor! You're here! I'm taking you shopping!" Vicky said, taking my hand.

"What? No, I need to study," I told her. "It's almost exam season, and I'm planning on taking my one of my GED exams soon."

"Wait, already? When have you had time? Weren't you still, like, a Junior?"

"...sophomore..." I quietly corrected her. "I've managed to find time to study here and there," I said.

Actually, what had happened was that I was getting kind of bored. I had over a thousand brains spread across the city, in order to cover as much of it as possible. Many of my brains were still focusing on building and expanding, while others were still watching out for criminal activity for Abyssal to fight.

Even so, there was a lot less crime these days, mainly due to the aftermath of Bakuda's bomb threats. People still weren't sure if all the bombs had been found, so the streets were quieter than usual. That wasn't even counting the neighbourhoods that were generally much quieter anyway, like the suburbs on the outskirts of town.

In short, I had a whole lot of brains that were pretty bored. So I had found ways to occupy myself – aside from perpetual, incremental improvements to Tinkering, I was also doing my actual homework. My bots could read books for my other brains to interpret and understand.

"Honestly? How? Are you getting enough sleep? I know Ames had a bit of an issue before..." Vicky pointed out.

"Yeah! I'm sleeping just fine," I assured her. In fact, my biological body was getting a good eight hours each day. Actually, each of my brain copies also needed sleep, but with a few thousand of them, sleeping in shifts wasn't hard, so at least a _part_ of me was awake at all times.

I was pretty sure I had a good chance of passing the exams this year if I tried, and that was without cheating. If I did cheat, using all my extra brains to look at my notes and textbooks somewhere else in the city while I sat in the exam room, I was pretty sure I could get top marks, if I was so inclined.

"Vicky, you really should learn from Taylor's example," Amy said.

"But I've already been studying all week!" Vicky complained. "Come on, we need to get out of this stuffy house!"

"It's not bad here..." I tried to say. Then again, I had just arrived. I suppose I would be a bit bored too if I had been cooped in here all day.

"The whole town's been shut down for a week! I heard they just cleared the mall to re-open, so let's go!" Vicky said. "It's our civic duty!"

"Our duty. To go to the mall." Amy muttered while rolling her eyes. "I didn't realize we were at risk of falling into the dangerous grasp of communism. Come, let us spend a whole bunch of money like good American consumers."

"Exactly! We have got go shopping, like the founding fathers intended for our great nation!" Vicky said, meeting Amy's sarcasm with equal and opposite enthusiasm.

"I'm thinking we could all use some more History review," I suggested weakly, but it was too late.

"Mom, we're going to the mall!"

"Just be back by dinner!" Mrs. Dallon shouted back.

"Don't fight it, she's unstoppable when she gets like this," Amy said to me.

"How are we even going to get there?" I asked. "Didn't your dad take the car for something?" I asked. I hadn't seen it in the driveway, at least.

"Ames, piggyback! I'll carry Tay-tay!" Vicky said.

"What am I, your jetpack?" Amy asked, even as she she obliged.

Vicky swept me up.

"Hey, what-" I protested, before we immediately took to the skies. I was frozen, afraid that even the slightest twitch would cause Vicky to drop me. We flew high above the rooftops, making a beeline for the mall.

* * *

We landed in front of the entrance of the mall. A few people pointed at us and took pictures, but it was more interesting to me how many people _didn't_. I guess there were just so many capes in Brockton Bay that seeing Glory Girl flying to the mall wasn't noteworthy for most people.

"So... what are we shopping for?" I asked.

"Clothes! An outfit or two for you!" Vicky said.

"For me? Why?" I asked.

Vicky just laughed. "Because I never got the chance to thank you properly for saving my sister's life. You deserve something nice for it. Come on, let's go!"

We walked inside. Well, more like Vicky pulled me in. While I more or less knew the layout of the mall, I rarely came here. It was the kind of place that Emma and her posse liked to hang out when they weren't making my life hell. I'd forgotten what shops there were around here, other than the big names. Fashion wasn't my thing either; most clothing stores were basically blind spots in my vision the few times I'd visited. Vicky, on the other hand, was just the opposite. She had memorized every single clothing store.

She pulled me into the first one, which was only steps from the entrance.

"I'm totally giving you a makeover today," Vicky said. "Your jeans are just way too baggy! Here, try this one on." She tossed a new pair of jeans at me. And another. And another. And a matching jean-jacket.

"Do I have to...?" I tried not to sound too ungrateful.

Vicky ushered me to the fitting rooms.

Five minutes later, I realized that Vicky must have had another hidden superpower; she just eyeballed my waist size through baggy clothing perfectly. Still, skinny jeans weren't my thing. Neither were pre-cut or pre-torn ones. They just didn't make sense to me. I wore jeans because they were comfy and durable, why anyone would pay so much money for something that constricted and pre-damaged made no sense at all.

With that store out of the way, Vicky moved us on to the athletics store. She insisted on getting me into yoga pants and sports bras, even though I didn't do any sports. For my daily runs, plain old sweatpants were good enough for me.

Half an hour later I realized we'd still only moved less than fifty feet from the entrance of the mall.

This was going to be a long day.

"Does she... do this often?" I asked Amy, during the brief pause we had while Vicky flew around the next store searching for more things for me to try on.

"Are you rethinking your decision to be a hero? Other people might get _oh so grateful,_" Amy replied.

"I'm not apologizing for saving your life," I said adamantly.

"And I'm thanking you. Through Vicky," Amy said. Though she didn't seem _that_ happy about it. Maybe she was feeling left out because her sister was so totally focused on me?

"Hey, why don't you do this with Amy?" I asked Vicky, as she arrived with the next set of clothes. I glanced at Amy, only to find her not where she was a second ago. She'd moved to hide behind a clothing rack, and she was shaking her head frantically, but it was too late.

"OH. MY. GOD. You two are like healer buddies! I could totally find outfits that complement the two of you! You two could look so good together! Why didn't I think of this before?"

_"What have you done?"_ croaked Amy as we were both dragged to the next store.

I could only mumble a hopeless apology as we moved on to the skirts. "Come on, Tay. You still run every morning, right? You need to show off those legs!"

Given how Lisa had designed my Eunoia costume, I thought I should have been used to looking more feminine. But I guess it was a bit of a mental block there; as Eunoia I considered it a costume. A different character, a different personality. But Vicky was trying to buy clothes for _me_. In my mind I was still _me, _the gangly, ugly girl who went to Winslow.

I got reminded of that when I stepped out of the fitting room with a short skirt that Vicky had _insisted_ was cute. And I heard laughing.

"Wow, it really _is_ her," came a familiar sneer. "Jeez, Hebert. Just because you ran away from everyone who reminded you you're ugly doesn't mean you're pretty," Julia said.

My bullies were here, at the mall, as I should have expected. I suppose the post-bombing re-opening had tons of shopping addicts swarming the place. Emma was there, looking almost as pretty as ever. She'd worked with the haircut I had given her before, she somehow managed to rock the pixie-cut look enough to still hang out with the "pretty" girls. Despite her veneer of confidence, she wasn't leading the pack, though – maybe she lost some confidence without Sophia there. Madison was being rather quiet, though she was wearing a hat and making herself small behind the others. Maybe she was only confident when she was hitting on the creepy teachers like Gladly.

"Yeah, Hebert. Don't you realize we were doing you a service? Don't embarrass yourself, an ugly duck needs to wear ugly duck clothes," said another girl. Cynthia, maybe? I didn't remember her all that well.

Part of me wanted to run away again. Part of me wanted to just smash them into the wall, with Abyssal's help. Part of me wanted to run and hide. Part of me wanted to give them brain aneurysms. None of those were particularly good decisions, and I ended up freezing. Witty comebacks weren't my thing.

Then Vicky stepped out of the fitting room with Amy. It seemed like she'd practically forced her little sister into a skirt as well, and she was puling her towards the mirrors.

"Oh my god, it's Glory Girl!" Julia squealed. She ran over to chat with her or get an autograph or something. Cynthia and Lauren and whats-her-name all followed along, but Emma didn't.

I was still focused on Emma, as she was on me. I didn't even know what I was feeling right now, whether it was anger, or hatred, or indignation. How did she manage to get away unscathed? We stared each other down.

Emma was the one to speak first. "I figured as much. You finally got powers, but you're still no predator."

I was left somewhat speechless. Of all the things I expected her to say, it wasn't that. What the hell did she even mean by "predator?" Why the hell was I supposed to be one? "What are you even talking about, Emma?"

"I always knew you had it in you, Taylor. I tried to convince Sophia. Now that we finally pushed you far enough, you still do nothing with your power except hang with the undeserving sheep. You're just... you're just a... I was right to cut ties with you, Taylor. Even with powers, you're not a fighter. I am." She was trying to act big, but I could tell she was faking the bravado. More importantly, I had no idea what she was rambling about.

"Taylor. Who's this?" Amy asked. I didn't even see her walk up to me.

Before Emma could say anything, I spoke up. "She's the one who used to bully me at school, along with her little posse."

Amy's eyes narrowed. "Oh. _She's_ the bitch you were talking about."

"You should be thanking me, Taylor! I'm the one who made you what you are today! You could have been a predator, like me!" Emma shouted back.

"I'm pretty sure no cape would thank someone for their trigger event," I answered dryly.

"Seriously? She's proud of diddling kids or something?" Amy asked. "Shit, Taylor, it's up to you to fix her. I don't do brains, especially ones that are _that_ fucked up."

I almost laughed at that. "I think I'm starting to understand. They're dumbasses who think that, as along as someone else is losing, they're winning. No wonder they bullied me in school."

"Oh. You know, I'd call her a leech, but leeches actually have legitimate medical uses," Amy said.

I felt a hard slap on my shoulder, and noticed Vicky had flown over and put herself between us. "You and Ames are a perfect match!"

Vicky looked at Emma and scrunched her face in concentration. "I think I've seen you before... do you know her, Taylor?"

"Oh yeah. Let me introduce you to Emma, the Bitch."

"Wait. _The_ Bitch?" Vicky repeated. I nodded.

Maybe it was Vicky's aura making me feel a little bolder, or just the fact that I knew Vicky had my back. I used to be alone at Winslow. But I had friends, powerful friends behind me now. Heck, _I_ was powerful. I wasn't proud of having been bullied, no way. But I wasn't afraid of bringing it up to Vicky, letting her know the truth. It wouldn't hurt me any more.

"She's just kidding. We used to be best friends," Emma said nonchalantly. She was falling back to the old Winslow routine. It always worked on the teachers. "Taylor's always pulling tricks like that."

"We _used_ to be best friends. Until she turned on me for no reason," I said.

"Ah. The _traitor. _I don't think we're going to get along. Get lost, girl." She turned to Julia and the other girls that she had been chatting with. She ripped away the notepads and phones from the girls. "Yeah, no more autographs. No selfies. Screw all of you, I didn't know you were wannabe villains."

Julia tried to grab her autographed note back from Vicky, only to fail miserably. "Hey, don't believe that loser. She used to make things up to complain about at school all the time! She's a dropout!"

Vicky flared her aura, flipping it to cause fear instead of adoration as she got angrier. "Don't talk about Tay like that. She saved my sister's _life_. What did _you_ do last week? Chip a nail? No, wait, that's probably too traumatic for you, you would have triggered from that. If you want to pick on people who don't deserve it, join the Empire 88, so then _I'll_ be allowed to beat the shit out of all of you." The extent of her aura had caught the attention, and support, of everyone in the store. Vicky's lambasting of my former bullies was _very_ public. And while I was sure it was the aura nudging people to take my side, I was willing to take whatever victory I could get.

Turned out my former bullies had no resistance to Glory Girl's aura whatsoever. I think I ended up getting that skirt out of spite. I did have the money now, after all.

* * *

The one thing that I actually needed to buy while I was at the mall was a new personal phone. I still hadn't managed to buy one since the hospital got bombed. While buying a phone for myself, I decided that it was about time that I got a new burner phone as well, since Abyssal had a cash stash that wasn't being used. I decided to have Abyssal go buy one on the other side of town, just to be safe.

Although he may have scared the convenience store owner, he got the phone without a fuss. I sent a message to Lisa from my new burner to let her know about the new number. To my surprise, she replied almost instantly.

_Help. Evacuating. Bayview towers. Heading to A's place._

Me and my other brains instantly focused on the area around Bayview towers. Was there something already happening? I kept a general surveillance of the streets at all times, and I hadn't noticed anything particularly strange. Lisa hadn't even told me where she lived, so I didn't know which unit she was in. If she was still inside.

My question was answered quickly when I saw Lisa climbing out the fire escape. I had Abyssal wait at the bottom for her. Before she even reached the alley, I saw an orange flickering coming from the windows of her apartment. Seconds later, the entire building's fire alarm started to go off.

"Yeah, couldn't leave behind evidence," she said as she hit the ground. "Could you keep an eye out for snipers?"

Snipers. I guess that meant she was finally trying to break away from Coil, and he didn't want to part on good terms. I had been concerned with literal street-level crime, mostly. Despite the number of flying capes in the city, most crime actually did take place on the ground. I had some coverage on some rooftops, but not a huge amount. While I got the bots into place, I decided it would be easier to coat Lisa in enough nanobots to stop a sniper bullet if it came down to it.

"What? Oh, jeez, Taylor, I didn't think our relationship had advanced that far yet. Not that I'm against it or anything," she joked as the bots crawled all over her. I didn't bother speaking as Abyssal. I'd have to meet up with her later in person.

For now, I was focused on making sure she got to my storehouse safely so that I _could_ question her. I started to migrate bots from across the city towards the path between Lisa and her destination. I also needed more bots to start crawling up buildings or get carried by the wind, so I could see rooftops better.

Well, what did you know, there _was_ a sniper. The weird thing was that he was wearing a PRT outfit. Was he actually PRT? Or a mercenary with a fake uniform? I was mostly certain he was fake, but the trouble I could cause if he was legitimately in the PRT wasn't worth taking him down right away. I would just keep a close eye on him.

Following the line of sight he had, it seemed like he was trying to find Lisa. He had her burning apartment in clear view, and he had noticed the fire. He rightfully assumed that Lisa was gone, and was scanning with his binoculars up and down the street.

He changed position and radioed someone, but I couldn't find his recipient. Whoever they were talking to, they weren't on the street _or_ the rooftops. But it was obvious he wasn't working alone. I used Abyssal to signal to Lisa when it was safe to move, out of sight of the sniper I _could_ see.

While Lisa had predicted Coil's mercenaries, I saw an entirely different group of people heading to intercept Lisa. Very white and tattooed people.

"Yeah, this way! I heard she was gonna out the Empire's capes. I figured, it ain't breaking the rules if you out her first, right?" one of the unpowered gang members was saying. "We're doin' a major favour for Kaiser. He'll reward us for this one."

Was Lisa seriously going to break the Unwritten Rules and reveal some villains' identities? It sure didn't seem like her... especially since she was the one who told me all about it. I'd have to ask her about it later. So many questions.

I directed Lisa down a street that I could see was clear, then sent Abyssal to attract the attention of the Empire gang.

* * *

"Eunoia! That's her! Eunoia!" I was still at the mall with Vicky, of course. I was used to her getting all the attention. I still didn't really know what to do with, well, _fans_.

"Um... hi?" I said. It was a young, Asian girl. She pulled her mother along, saying something that I couldn't understand.

"You saved my father! He was taken hostage by Bakuda. Thank you so much!" I didn't see her father anywhere nearby, but he was likely still recovering from the ordeal. Her mother said something to me and bowed; it wasn't hard to understand her gratitude.

"I'm sorry your family had to go through so much," I told her.

"It's okay. Dad is tough, and we know how to work hard. We had to move here after the Simurgh attacked Shanghai, and start from nothing."

Damn. I tried not to complain much about how my life sucked, but this helped put things into perspective. Emma may have been a bitch, but the Simurgh was essentially queen bitch of the planet. And this girl had lost her home, friends, and _country_ because of that. "I'm sure you'll make it through this," I told her. Kind of inspiring to me, honestly. One of the people I would have to try to protect.

"I... um... mom also wanted to tell you something," she said, conferring with her mother in her native language. Her mother started crying uncontrollably, though she was still trying to tell her daughter something.

"What is it? Why?"

"She said she's sorry about her cousin. My uncle. Um... he was the one who, uh, died. At the hospital. Um. At the beginning."

Oh. Damn. Two men from the same family that had been forcibly implanted with bombs. Now this was a family that was going through tough times. I wondered how many other families Bakuda had kidnapped wholesale. At least the girl herself hadn't been a direct victim of the mad Tinker.

"She doesn't have to be sorry," I told her. "It was Bakuda's fault. He didn't have much of a choice in the matter."

"Um. I'll let her know. Thanks again," the girl said, while her mother tried to smile to me through her tears.

As they walked away, Amy sighed. "And I thought I got enough of that stuff at the hospital," she said.

I just stared at her. I wouldn't call her heartless, but... well, that was a bit blunt, wasn't it?

Amy just gave me a look, and shrugged. "What? Patients with long sob stories, they just waste my time when I could be healing more people. It's annoying, and it just slows me down."

"I guess... but it doesn't hurt to listen, does it?"

"Not for me, really. I'm a healer, and I don't do brains. If they wanted to vent their feelings, they should go see a counsellor. Now come on, let's finish shopping before someone else notices and we get a healing lineup..."

* * *

Meanwhile, two miles away, Abyssal was about to take on the gangsters. I sent a wave of bots out of the alley, so it looked like liquid smoke pouring out, cutting in front of the group. Abyssal stepped out into his artificial shadow, towering over the gang members. Given the angle of the sunset, his shadow loomed over most of them. This would be a pretty routine round-up. While they were shocked and awed by the mere presence of the giant knight, I spread the wave of darkness around their feet.

"Oh shit, it's the fucking Shadow Knight!"

"Go, go, call them!" They started running. Or at least, they tried to. The bots around their feet locked into place, tripping them instantly. Even so, two of them were desperately pulling out their cellphones instead of trying to free themselves. Probably calling for backup. It didn't take much to break the devices.

Abyssal gave each of the Empire thugs a bit of a thrashing. He couldn't give them stern words, and it wasn't as if they didn't choose the gang life. They weren't forced to walk down the street with baseball bats under threat of an implanted explosive. I didn't injure them enough to send them to the hospital, though. The last thing I wanted was to have to treat the very same people I had beaten up. Or give Amy more work to do.

* * *

At the mall, Vicky was teasing me about my first fan. Apparently the girl went to Arcadia, though she wasn't in the same grade as Vicky. She told me about a few of the other students who had approached her, thanking Panacea for saving family members' lives. Somehow, I didn't think I would have gotten the same reception at Winslow.

Hell, I could picture the bullies picking on the people who had lost family members in the bombing. I remember, once, Emma had tried to make fun of the fact that I cried when my mother died. I should have figured out she was irredeemable then.

* * *

Through my brief distraction, another one of my brains had to inform me that a giant boulder had smashed Abyssal into tiny fragments. Wait, not a boulder, but a large piece of asphalt. Who the hell had just hit Abyssal?

Where was Lisa? I checked on her just to make sure she wasn't in danger. She'd taken cover, because Abyssal was no longer escorting her personally, and was nowhere near whoever launched the chunk of asphalt. I couldn't afford to keep watch on her, while being ready to disable the sniper, _and_ the other mercenary tailing her, _and_ wherever the rest of the mercenaries were hiding.

I didn't have quite enough to make _two _Abyssals at once right now, not without losing my coverage of a large portion of the city. And I wasn't sure if I wanted to reveal that I could, either. Still, the mercenaries didn't seem to be doing anything at the moment. They couldn't track Lisa reliably, not with some of the hints I was giving her combined with her own power. If I didn't _have_ to fight them, I wouldn't, for now.

Time to focus on the Empire capes, then. Apparently one of the gangsters' phone calls had gone through, and this was their backup. The girl who was standing on a floating rock must have been Rune. The guy beside her was... I forgot his name. He was the whitest white supremacist I had ever seen, though. White skin, white hair, white eyes - he didn't even have pupils. It was like he bathed in bleach or something. I also forgot what his power was, but...

_Alabaster. Perfect healing every few seconds,_ another one of my brains reminded me.

...right. Nothing Abyssal couldn't handle.

"That was it? Kaiser said that this dude was harassing our members all week," Alabaster said.

"Maybe that's why he was mostly attacking our unpowered members," Rune replied. "All show, no go. I bet Cricket was exaggerating." I wanted to make a retort. Abyssal, hiding from them? They'd been hiding from me. Kaiser tried to pretend that he owned the city, but the city was _mine_. Or, it would be soon. Abyssal couldn't handle Lung, and probably not Purity either, but he was definitely among the top tier of capes in this city. He took down Bakuda, hadn't they heard? Then again, as white supremacists, they probably downplayed how dangerous the Asian cape was.

"Hey, Alabaster, Rune, give us a hand! This crap is really sticky!" the gang members on the ground shouted.

Rune floated the rock down and Alabaster jumped off. He reached down to one of the members to yank him away from the nanobots that were keeping him on the ground.

I knew this was my chance. As they gripped each others' hands, I sent a wave of nanobots towards the cape, trapping Alabaster's foot as well. Rune saw the movement and yelled at her partner, but it was too little, too late. He let go and quickly tried to do a backflip away from the spreading "shadow" of robots, but the ones that caught his foot locked in, causing him to stumble mid-jump. Even so, he twisted and still managed to recover and land on his other foot.

His fancy acrobatics didn't really matter. A whole bunch of the bots entered his bloodstream, and I prepared to make him fall unconscious like everyone else had.

And then, about a second later... my bots simply disappeared. A few of the bots that were still stuck to his clothing worked their way into his bloodstream again. Before they could even reach his brain, they simply disappeared. Vanished. I didn't just lose control of them, they just... ceased to exist.

Hm. So it was more than just regeneration. I thought it might have been a matter of simply harming him fast enough that he couldn't fully regenerate in time, but apparently his power didn't work that way. It was like he went back in time or something, and foreign objects like my bots were just eliminated from the universe.

At least I could still cover him with bots on the _outside_. I ensnared him with the bots, keeping him pinned down. The pile of bots took form as Abyssal in a kneeling position, with a hand already wrapped around his leg. Abyssal stood up, dangling him upside down. Even in that position, he showed no fear or hesitation and drew two guns, unloading both of them into Abyssal's face.

Okay, that was a little funny. I mean, he just saw Abyssal get blown apart by a giant slab of asphalt and smashed into powder. What did he expect the guns to do? The bullets stopped inside of Abyssal's helmet, doing very little damage. I didn't want him playing with dangerous weapons and possibly hitting some innocent people in the crossfire, so I slammed him into the ground. He didn't let go, so I smashed him down again and again, until the guns went clattering away.

I raised him up again.

Not even a scratch on his body. No blood. Nothing. Huh. That definitely qualified him as a high-level brute, even though he technically wasn't any more durable than a normal human. I wondered how much punishment he could actually survive.

Rune helped answer that question for me.

The same block of asphalt that she smashed Abyssal with earlier returned, pulverizing my hero to powder _again_. But with its speed, it also ploughed straight through Alabaster. The young man practically bounced off the half-ton slab, and then continued bouncing down the street before skidding to a stop.

I _knew_ he had probably been bisected. Or worse, actually, since the half that got pinned under the slab was smeared across the street like a blood marker. I couldn't believe Rune would do that to her own partner so easily.

And then Alabaster was suddenly perfectly fine again. I didn't see him heal, or anything like that. The legs that were twenty feet away vanished, as did the blood and viscera that coated the street a second ago. All gone, cleaned up, like it never happened in the first place. "Ow," he said sarcastically.

"You're welcome," Rune replied.

* * *

"Guys, isn't it about time for you to head home?" I asked. Part of the reason was that I just wanted to get away from the mall. I was all shopped out, and the fans and crowds didn't help. There were people asking for my autograph, when I didn't even know how to sign my own autograph! Having to focus on all of them, and shopping, and Lisa, and the Empire fight... was actually a little more exhausting than I expected. I almost longed for the boredom I had felt this morning.

"Oh, right. Mom wanted us home by dinner, didn't she? Are you joining us?" she asked.

"Maybe? Let me call dad and let him know."

I phoned home. I checked with my bots to find out where he was – crap, driving home after a late day at the docks. He wouldn't be picking up the phone. He still didn't have his own cellphone, even though he had accepted that I needed one. So much for that. I made sure that there wasn't anything shady happening on the route home, either. No gang ambushes or cape fights.

And I checked up on Lisa, too. She was proceeding slowly, and I used my bots on her body to alert her when it was safe to move. The mercenaries had been confused, but every once in a while it seemed like they would pick up on her trail again out of nowhere. Either they had even more hidden agents than I anticipated, or they were way more skilled than I thought. Still, they weren't doing anything aside from watching. If they really wanted to kill Lisa, why weren't they even trying to attack?

While I was doing that, I did a quick survey of the rest of the city as well. A few street fights, some drug dealing, a break-in. Damn. I had sent too many of my spare bots to protect Lisa, and now I barely had enough left in the rest of the city beyond observation.

What was Mrs. Dallon preparing for dinner? Hm. Chinese take-out. I was totally in the mood for Chinese. Maybe I'd just go with them and call dad when he got home.

Multitasking wasn't hard, but it was kind of annoying to juggle.

* * *

Rune and Alabaster were separated by quite a distance. He would have to run back to her if they were going to escape together, or he'd have to get away on foot by himself. I was pretty sure he couldn't outrun Abyssal – his power didn't make him faster. So I would concentrate on catching Rune first, then maybe catch him afterwards.

I sent a wave of nanobots rushing underneath and past Rune.

Alabaster started running towards her as well.

"Stop! It's the shadow!" Rune shouted, pointing out the wave of nanobots I was sending forward. Crap, I was depending too much on the dim lighting, but from her angle, I guess she could notice them better. She started moving her own platform towards Alabaster, who quickly switched to a retreat.

I knew she would be able to move faster than the wave of nanobots or Abyssal could, and they'd get away. I stretched out Abyssal's legs and made him run faster, and his additional stride length allowed him get between them. He drew one of his swords. This time, I also made sure the sword was ready to cut, lining one edge with as many of the diamond-tipped bots as I could. Abyssal didn't even need to swing the sword; Rune flew straight into it, unable to change the direction of the slab of asphalt she was riding on fast enough. The diamond-toothed edge ground through the asphalt like a chainsaw through cardboard. The sudden deceleration combined with the surprise of a six-foot-long broadsword slicing its way towards her caused Rune to involuntarily depart from her platform.

With Abyssal's other hand, I grabbed Rune by the waist. I could feel her struggle, using her power against Abyssal. Interestingly enough, she was only able to "grab" a few nanobots at a time, flinging them away with her telekinesis. I think she was trying to lift Abyssal up off the ground completely, but she didn't realize he was actually trillions of separate bits working together. She quickly gave up when Abyssal brought the massive sword up to her throat.

"I... I give up!" Rune said quickly. She sounded young - maybe around my age. Still, that didn't mean she wasn't deadly. I could be deadly, too. And the sword against her throat wasn't so much a threat to her, but for Alabaster. I had my bots inside her bloodstream like the others, and I could knock her unconscious any time I wanted. She didn't regenerate like Alabaster did.

I looked towards Alabaster. I wonder if he was going to try anything, but he turned tail and ran. I could send Abyssal after him, but I wanted him closer to Lisa. I could also gather more bots from the surroundings to catch him, but I had just started to notice some heavily-armed men spread out over some rooftops. Possibly the mercenaries Lisa had been talking about, though they weren't doing anything just yet. Alabaster was running away; he wouldn't be a threat for the short term. I wanted to keep watch on the mercenaries.

I could feel Rune shake a little bit when she watched him run. Time for the little girl to go to sleep. I slowed her bloodflow to her head, and just like all the others, she fell unconscious a few seconds later. Now, where could I find some heroes to put her away properly?

I used the bots spread around to find the nearest Protectorate or Wards patrol, one that wouldn't take Abyssal too far from Lisa. I found two of them, Vista and Browbeat, about two blocks away. Abyssal kept a tight grip on Rune in his hand and dragged the other neo-nazis along. I didn't really bother to use my bots to infect them; it was too much trouble trying to control all the normal people. Capes were definitely worth the effort though.

"Where are you taking me?" Rune asked fearfully. Oh, she'd woken up again. Welp, time to knock her out again. My other captives also probably thought Abyssal was taking them into a dark alley to murder them or something. They started screaming for help. My first reaction was to shut them up, but then I realized I _wanted_ the Wards to hear them screaming. It would get them running towards Abyssal.

"Kaiser... h-he, he won't let you get... get away with th-this..." one of the gangsters choked out. I ignored his empty threat. Abyssal continued to trudge through the alley, dragging the neo-nazis behind him.

It took me a while to figure out what Rune was so afraid of. I kept thinking that she was just deathly afraid of being arrested for some reason. It's not like she was going straight to the Birdcage. She wasn't Lung. It wasn't until I felt her cross her legs tightly and whimper that I realized what exactly had her so scared.

I was still thinking like a girl. A straight, teenage girl that was dragging Rune along after a fight. Even though Abyssal was a huge, aggresive, evil-looking male. Who didn't talk and was forcibly taking her into a dark alley. Whoopsies. I guess Abyssal was more effective at inspiring fear than I thought, even though it wasn't the kind of fear I had intended. Or maybe it was the Empire's fault - their members weren't above doing such things, and Rune may have normalized it. I wasn't going to break character just to reassure her, though. It was best just to hand her over to the Wards as quickly as possible.

Vista and Browbeat arrived at the end of the alleyway, following the screams. Browbeat was significantly larger and more muscular than he was a few minutes ago, though he wasn't anywhere near the size of Abyssal. As soon as they saw us, the distance between us immediately tripled.

I had to admit that Vista had good reflexes.

"Help!" Rune shouted. If she considered running and surrendering to the Wards a _better _option, I'd call it a win.

"Stop right there!" Vista shouted. To her surprise, Abyssal actually stopped. I didn't want to fight them, but I guess the little girl didn't expect the massive figure to actually listen to her. "Don't come any closer!"

"**RUNE**."

"What? I'm not Rune, I'm Vista! She copied my costume colours!" Vista shouted back. I facepalmed, although I didn't make Abyssal mimic my own movements. Instead, I had him lift the Empire cape so they could get a better look.

"That looks like..." Browbeat said.

"**RUNE**," I finished for him.

"Ah. Um... what do we do?" Vista asked. "It's an easy arrest, but we aren't supposed to go near him."

"I'm calling it in," Browbeat said. "Maybe Dauntless or someone can pick her up while we keep watch?"

I couldn't believe they were acting so useless right now. I had a known criminal bound and ready to be taken away, but they were just waffling about. I knew that if I just let Rune go, she could just levitate something and fly herself away at the first chance she got. And my method of knocking capes out only left them unconscious for a short time, otherwise I'd be risking actual brain damage. I didn't want her to wake up while the Wards were wasting time figuring out protocol.

Abyssal dropped her to the ground, where she crumpled into a heap. I did the same to the other members, and then dispersed Abyssal. I kept an eye on the situation to make sure they got captured, though.

"Uh, never mind, Console. He dropped the cape. Should... should we approach?" Browbeat was saying into his headset.

Vista cautiously reduced the space-stretching while Browbeat advanced forward. He was definitely wary of the dark alley, where it seemed like Abyssal could simply jump out from anywhere. Which, technically, he could. I was still keeping most of his bots in the general area in case any of the E88 members woke up and ran.

"Well, it's definitely Rune. And a few other Empire members," Browbeat shouted to Vista. Yeah, a couple of skinheads and one of them with a clear swastika tattoo made that an easy conclusion.

"Uh... I'm going to call it in," Vista said. "Keep watch on the cape."

While Vista was busy on the radio, one of the regular members woke up first. He realized what was going on, and considered himself blessed that Abyssal was gone, he tried to make a run for it. Browbeat was crouched down and placing handcuffs on the unconscious Rune. Still, even a handcuffed cape could be a very dangerous cape, and he was more worried that she would get away rather than the normal ones. He hesitated, wondering if he should risk leaving Rune unguarded versus capturing the escaping gang member.

I solved the dilemma for him.

I reformed Abyssal quickly, just in front of the escaping man, and punched him in the gut. It sent him flying back into the pile of bodies, retching and gasping. Vista and Browbeat only just caught a glimpse of Abyssal dissolving into the shadows again. I needed to turn my attention to the mercenaries.

"That's... creepy," Browbeat said. "Is he still here?"

"Probably? He's on our side, right?" Vista asked. "I think I'm afraid of the dark again."

"Well, Armsy said we need to stay away, but I have no idea what direction he is right now. Let's just start cuffing the rest of them," Browbeat said.

I kept some extra bots in the area until the PRT came to foam Rune and bring her in. Meanwhile, I changed my focus to the mercenaries. Now it looked like the mercenaries were watching Abyssal primarily, even though they didn't take action. Was their mission just observation? Is that all they did? No wonder they had been so terribly ineffective at the bank...

Lisa had arrived safely at Abyssal's safehouse. There was nobody else in the area, not even mercenaries, as far as I could tell. Then again, I only had bots in the streets; I couldn't manage to have bots inside every building, on every floor, in every window, and in every vehicle. There were still plenty of places there could have been mercenaries hiding. Still, nobody had actually tried to kill her, so I counted that as a win.

I could feel Lisa's relief through the nanobot armour coating. Most of my excess bots had been sent out for tonight's chaos, but they were returning for her protection. I had Abyssal wait inside. And enough to create a four-poster bed for her, one with bulletproof curtains. More bots also ensured all the windows and other entrances were sealed, and nobody would know she was hiding there.

"Talk to you in the morning," Lisa said as she crawled into the bed I made for her.

* * *

Meanwhile, Vicky had set me and Amy down at her home. "That was fun, wasn't it?"

I just smiled.

* * *

**Author's Note**:

Well, here it is. Funny thing, unlike most people, the whole coronavirus thing is making more work for me.

I had to tweak this a few times; I kind of wanted to show the coverage and multitasking power of Taylor but without making things too disjointed and chaotic for the reader. Still not quite sure if I hit a good balance.


	26. Extraction 2

Extraction 2

The first thing I did in the morning, as part of my daily run, was to run to Abyssal's storage area where Lisa was sleeping. My bots and other brains had watched the mercenaries leave the rooftops overnight while my body slept. There wasn't anyone else watching her, or me, as I went to meet her face-to-face.

Secure in our safehouse protected by Abyssal, I woke Lisa up.

"Come on, sleepyhead. I think we have a lot to talk about," I said as I shook her shoulder.

"Wuh-waaah!" Lisa bolted awake faster than I expected, and nearly tumbled off the makeshift bed. "Oh. Right. Good morning, Taylor."

I formed some bots into a chair and sat down. "So. What happened?"

"I think I figured out Coil's power, or something to do with it. It's definitely a Thinker power that allows him to succeed more than he should. But the important thing is, he can't force the impossible or extremely improbable to happen."

"But he wants you dead. And you aren't right now."

"Yeah. The interesting thing was _why now_. I've always pissed him off a little bit, but my own power usually lets me know when I'll need to back off. Keep myself too useful to get rid of, you know? But lately, I knew I had cost him too much. The Undersiders are disbanded. He's lost an entire team of capes. So I made a vow."

"To who?"

"To myself. That if I was going down, I would take him down with me. Set off all the the traps. Reveal everything I know. Emails and documents to anyone and everyone who would listen. Steal all his money from every account I've managed to hack. Leave you a message with what I knew so that maybe you'd take vengeance on him for me, maybe."

I wasn't completely sure if I would have, but I was kind of inclined to. "I see. And that's what you did?"

"No! That's the crazy part, I haven't done it _yet_. I was assuming he had monitoring equipment on all the stuff at my apartment, so I was only getting ready to buy a few things. Mercenaries got sent to my apartment to kill me _before_ anything else. For some reason, he made the decision to kill me right then and there. It's not like him."

"You know him well enough for that?" I raised an eyebrow.

"I've used my power on him as often as I can afford. He's the quiet and cautious type; that's why the other gangs barely notice he's there. He likes getting every bit of value out of his... assets. So I find it strange that they were coming to kill me so quickly. His decision seemed to come when I _decided_ to take him down, and I'm pretty certain his power isn't telepathy."

"I see. Did you know that the Empire was trying to kill you, too?"

"Me? They were _specifically_ after me? What the hell did I do to them?"

"So you don't know? They were talking about you revealing the identity of their capes..."

"Fuck. Okay, yes, I know who they all are. Coil asked me to research them. Did he release the info anyway? Wait, no... he's just going to pin it on me, probably. If he can't eliminate me, it would make me such a pariah to all capes, hero and villain, I'd have nowhere to go anyway..." She turned to me. "The Empire isn't going nuts right now, are they?"

A quick check with my bots told me that no, they weren't. The look on my face told Lisa all she needed to know.

"Oh, thank goodness. We still have a bit of time, then. How is your vision of the city?"

"I can see the entire city. The outdoors, anyway."

"Not inside the buildings?"

"I figured it would be a bit of a breach of privacy... not sure if I want to peek inside everyone's homes, you know? And people _clean_ the insides of buildings. They'd start to notice if a weird layer of dust keeps appearing."

"Ugh. Fine, but you _need_ to make enough bots to keep permanent watch on his bases. He's slippery, and we need to keep track of whoever goes in and out. He uses decoys and stuff, too."

"Sure thing. But I just need to extend my range a little more."

"Range? But you have the entire city already. I'm pretty sure all of Coil's bases are somewhere in the city. He might have a retirement home in Hawaii, but that's not important. You planning on expanding to Boston or something?" Lisa asked.

I shrugged. "Eventually, maybe. For now I just want to make it to the landfill. It's about ten miles out of town, and I'm almost there. I'm running out of things to use without making people suspicious."

"Is that why the streets are cleaner these days? You're able to convert trash now?"

"High carbon-content trash, mainly. But nobody really checks the landfill that much, and I can pump out literal tons of bots. Plenty of plastic in there."

"Right. So you can instantly search anywhere in the city... wait, can you see everything simultaneously?"

I shook my head. "Depends on how carefully I'm searching. Each of my extra brains covers a two-block radius, roughly, with overlap. Each of my brains really only thinks at normal human speed, so if I'm just scanning quickly through an area, it'll still take me... five minutes or so. If I'm searching in detail it can be up to half an hour per sweep in the really busy areas."

"Damn. That might be more than enough for Coil to sneak away, if he keeps making the 'right' decisions. Is there any way to speed it up?"

"I could build more brains," I said. "Or just focus less on the other areas. Actually I can usually devote the brains in the suburbs to concentrate on downtown somewhat, to speed things up a little."

Tattletale shook her head. "No, we need the entire city covered. I know he has at least one base, or safehouse, somewhere in the residential areas. In addition to his actual home."

So when it came down to actually capturing Coil, I would have to _actually_ scan every part of the city. Man, that sucked.

"How much would it take you to have Abyssal appear anywhere in the city? I feel like, with Coil's power, he'd always be in the right place to avoid us. The only way to catch him is to _be_ everywhere at once and make it impossible for him to evade Abyssal."

"It would take... a lot," I told her. "The amount of bots that make up Abyssal is about enough to cover... maybe twenty-five city blocks. Basically a five-block radius. So if I double the number of bots right now, I could put him anywhere within five blocks within a few minutes..."

"And within two blocks, you'd need over six times that amount."

"Might want to, uh, triple that if I'm checking the insides of all the buildings, too. It actually doesn't take many bots to keep watch over the open streets, but indoors, with all those corners and walls and levels..."

Lisa gave a heavy sigh. "How long?"

"Just let me reach the landfill, and I think I can start ramping up fast. You okay hunkering down here for another day or two?"

"I'll find a way to manage, if you be my bodyguard. I'll try to narrow down the possible locations so you don't have to cover absolutely everything. I want this done sooner rather than later."

* * *

Aside from building bots, I was scheduled to actually go to court this week. I hadn't thought about it much, since Mr. Bryson and his firm basically did all the work, aside from taking some statements from me. Today, most of the proceedings had to do with the civilian and school side of things. Mr. Bryson had chosen my outfit for me; he made me look like I was some prim and proper kid who went to Immaculata, the private school. Very stereotypical, nerdy, meek and harmless, and a conservative schoolgirl fashion. I was pretty sure that even the actual Immaculata students weren't like that. He even had spare glasses for me, ones that had thicker rims but were still just plain and dull as my normal ones.

"Image is everything," he told me. "We need the judge and jury to see you as the victim. I know what the school board has said; they claim you're the troublemaker and all your accusations are made-up. We need to make sure that angle looks as ridiculous as possible."

"Even the glasses?" I asked.

"Shows up better in photos, and at a distance. The press will be all over this," he said.

We got there early, but even then we got swarmed at the front steps to the courthouse.

"Eunoia! Eunoia! People have said you stopped going to Winslow, what can you tell us about that?"

"A question from the Daily Sun. There have been rumours that you used your powers at Winslow, is that true?"

"Brockton Bay Herald here. The public school system is already strapped for cash, what do you hope to gain by suing them?"

I kept my head down as we pushed past, just as Mr. Bryson and Mrs. Dallon had coached me. Mr. Bryson threw out some well-practiced non-answers like, "Oh, if you'd like to pay attention to the proceedings, then you'll find your answers."

Inside the courtroom, it looked like Emma and Madison were there already, along with their families. The funny thing was that Dad hadn't come, for two reasons. One, Mr. Bryson was worried about his temper. Even Dad had to admit that the stuff that would be brought up in court would probably get him shouting, and the last thing we wanted was to be held in contempt of court. Second, he was a single parent supporting a child. He couldn't afford to miss work - and Mr. Bryson was going to play up that angle.

For the most part, I sat quietly and let the professionals do their work. To be honest, most of the legal jargon was really boring to me, and I barely understood it. A lot of it vaguely seemed to depend on arguing about pointless things, like whether a texted "ya" constituted conspiracy or not.

My mind was elsewhere during most of the proceedings. I concentrated on various things, keeping myself entertained with my bots while remaining perfectly still and stoic in the courtroom. Manufacturing? Going fine. Checking on Lisa? She was fine, going for food and bathroom break at a McDonald's. Mercenaries? None that I could see. A bit of minor crime here or there? Maybe I would send Abyssal over. Expansion? My range reached the landfill now, so I started building as as quickly as I could. I found that more exciting than the actual case.

As predicted, the Barnes family was playing up the "Taylor is just a troublemaking liar" angle for some instances, while going for "it's just friendly pranking, Taylor is just whiny" on others. It wasn't anything I hadn't already heard them say to the Principal, who took their side.

Of course, thanks to Sophia's home invasion and attempted murder (I couldn't believe I'd said that) and, combined with her previous statements, helped paint the picture that they were far more than mere pranks. Mr. Bryson played up the fact that they were friends with convicted criminals. He even tried to accuse Blackwell as an agent of the gangs, enabling criminals like Sophia. Unfortunately, that line of thought was shot down by the judge, for lack of evidence. I didn't actually believe it myself. I thought she was just incompetent and lazy. But it would have been funny.

I was eventually called up to the stand. I walked up and did the whole official swearing-in thing.

"Miss Hebert, could you recall the events of January 4th, 2011 that occurred at Winslow High?"

"You're talking about my mother's flute being stolen, then being shoved into a toxic dumpster behind the school, right?" I asked.

"Objection! The term 'toxic' is inaccurate and should be redacted," said Emma's lawyer.

"Your honor, I have a copy of the police report here. Analysis indicated that it consisted of food waste that had been rotting for days, since trash pickup is weekly. Medical records show the extent of Miss Hebert's injuries and the resulting infections. It could have killed her. 'Toxic' is a completely appropriate term."

He'd already presented that evidence earlier today. Yippee.

"Objection overruled. Continue, Miss Hebert."

I explained exactly what had happened. Mr. Bryson had told me absolutely not to lie or even exaggerate - he had enough evidence to win, but any inconsistencies would cause a whole lot more thrown out. So I had to rely on what I was sure of, but that, of course, was basically the same thing Principal Blackwell had dismissed anyway.

"Did you see their faces?"

"I certainly saw Emma's," I said.

"Did you see who pushed you in?"

"It was Sophia Hess."

"But did you see her?"

"I didn't need to," I said. I did my best to keep my annoyance down. If only I could find a criminal right now for Abyssal to beat up.

"In short, you couldn't be sure it Miss Hess shoving you into the dumpster."

"I didn't say that," I replied.

"Could you please clarify, Miss Hebert?"

"I heard her talking. And she'd been bullying me and constantly bullying me for almost one and a half years. I know her voice. She was there."

"But you can't be sure..."

"I can be sure. I am sure. Stop trying to put words in my mouth," I shot back at the lawyer. "You want to blindfold me and have me pick her voice out? It'll be easy."

The judge banged on his gavel. "That won't be necessary. It is not unreasonable to believe that someone is capable of recognizing another's voice."

"Very well then. Regarding an incident late February, there were three people who claimed you used a parahuman power against them at Winslow."

Was that the hair-cutting thing? I had to use a few of my minds to check the date. Yeah, nothing much had happened at Winslow except the "scissors incident."

_You should bring that up,_ I suggested to myself.

_Make sure to mention Sophia!_

"Just to clarify, are you talking about when a convicted criminal held me against my will, and another assaulted me with scissors?"

"Objection! Sophia Hess had yet to be convicted of anything at the time."

"But Shadow Stalker was, of using excessive force and assault. She was on probation at the time. For all intents and purposes, they are the same person. Objection overruled."

The lawyer huffed in frustration and turned back to me. "There's no proof they attacked you with scissors."

"It's my word against the words of a convicted criminal and her friends." I really wanted to play that up as much as I could.

"Regardless of what they claim, we are asking you to testify. Did you assault them with a parahuman power?"

Funny, we had spent the earlier part of the day trying to define what a prank was. And they had gotten away with it, mostly. Apparently throwing juice in my hair qualified as "just a prank." I honestly didn't feel that way, even now. Looking back on what I did to them, I was pretty sure it counted as assault, even if it had been slow and long term. But if they could get away with defining these things as pranks, so would I.

"No." I just had to convince myself that was merely _pranking with a parahuman power_ and maybe it wouldn't be perjury.

The rest of the day at court was basically the same thing over and over - I'd tell them something, and Emma's lawyer tried his best to discredit me. This was a pretty long case; we barely even got through the evidence relating to the bullying itself, and hadn't even gotten to addressing the staff's mismanagement.

Because it had been revealed that Shadow Stalker was Sophia Hess, on the next court date, the PRT would be involved.

* * *

"Are we there yet? Are we there yet?" Lisa asked with an amused smirk.

"Young lady, you stop that or I'm kicking you out," I said to her in my best mock-parental voice.

She laughed. "Okay, seriously, though, it's time to nail that bastard. How fast are you sending bots into the city?"

"I'm churning out about five tons a day... but if I leave them in there, I can up it to twenty tons a day by tomorrow. Would you prefer I just shore up the defenses around this building instead of deep-searching the city?" I asked. "Then we can afford to wait longer."

Lisa pinched her nose. "No, we need them in the city. I'm certain prolonging this gives Coil more of an advantage than us. If things get too bad he might just pick up and leave the city, or hire a cape with just the right power to kill me. Maybe both. We hit him tomorrow, at the latest."

"Alright then, where should I start looking?"

Lisa pulled a map from the bag she had from her apartment. "Just make sure you scout these places out without him noticing."

"No problem," I said. "As long as he doesn't have extreme HEPA filters covering everything."

"He almost certainly does."

I shrugged. "Then my bots can still cut through it and move through, as long as he doesn't have sensors or something that detect the damage."

"He _might_ have those."

"Well if all else fails I can wait until he opens a door or something and let bots in through there. It won't be many, because I'm sure he'll notice a giant clump of dust getting inside."

"Well, something's better than nothing." Lisa unfolded the map and pointed at a few spots she had already marked. "I need you to investigate a few buildings. Like, right now. I've narrowed the number of possible bases down to eight likely locations..."

"_Eight_ is narrowing it down?" I interjected.

"He has _at least _three. Took me a while to figure that one out. He changes it up, and every one of them has some kind of legitimate front," she said. "I had almost no data to work from at all. Believe me when I say he's paranoid and cautious. I got the whole black-bag treatment every time he needed to see me in person, and I'm pretty sure I've never actually been taken to his _main_ base. From the banking records, though, I think I know what construction companies and properties he's using. Any one of them could hide a base of his."

"So, as long as we know where his bases are, you're okay if Abyssal doesn't have _complete_ coverage of the city. I just need to make sure he's ready to deploy at any of those sites."

"As long as you have enough for three copies of him by tomorrow," Lisa reminded me. "No later, I'm sure he'll have a counter-strategy by then, or already skipped town. His power probably lets him do that."

I nodded. "Okay, which ones do I need to check first?"

"You can't do it all at once?" she asked.

"Sort-of-technically no?" I said. "It's like... yes, I have extra brains, and each one is semi-independent, and I can sense all their thoughts. But if _I_ need to know something, I still have to, um, focus and pay attention to, what another brain is sensing or thinking."

"So you can think a million thoughts at once but only pay attention to one at a time, basically."

"More or less. I'm getting better at swapping back and forth between viewpoints, though."

"Are your other brains smart enough actually do the search independently?" Lisa asked.

_Of course we are,_ came a thousand indignant replies in unison.

"Yes," I said. I think Lisa noticed my own embarrassment.

"Then _I _think you need to learn to delegate better. Put some more trust in your... subordinates. Tell them to search all the spots at once. They'll let you know if they find something suspicious," she advised.

"Alright, then. Can you give me some more specifics?" I asked.

Lisa pointed to the first red X. "There's a parking complex here. I'm guessing a hidden entrance that's either in a service closet or a disguised parking space. The next one's an abandoned shipping facility here by the Docks, and a shop with a back alley entrance somewhere on this block," she added, moving on to the next X's. "Those are the most likely candidates for his main base. The other five are less likely; a construction site here, a business complex here, one of these apartment complexes, and one of these two houses," she said, pointing at each of the subsequent marks on the map.

"Just... houses? Can't you be a bit more specific?" I asked. "That'll take a lot of time to search through all of it."

Lisa shook her head. "Sorry, that's all I got. I had to piece these together from trying to estimate how far we drove and when the car turned while he put a hood over my head. And trying to trace his phone calls without him noticing, or trying to link together suspicious transactions from the bank records I stole that day... Coil's _very_ paranoid."

I had all my swarm all the areas at once. That meant large patches of the city started receding from my view as I started to see the interiors.

The parking garage It looked pretty simple, about three levels up and two levels underground. It was the fastest to check, since it was mostly open, flat area. I did look for air vents, storage closets, plumbing, and other possibly hidden entrances.

As for the shipping facility, the entire building was pretty bare, but large, with a lot of junk and debris to sort through. When looking for trapdoors and hidden switches, I still had to scour every square inch. And the entrances might have even been in the building, but hidden outside or something.

The construction site was a mess, and it took more of my attention. It was hard to determine what was out of place, and what was merely unfinished construction.

The business complex was quite a lot harder. It was closer to a strip mall than business complex, but the businesses didn't seem to be doing so well. Two of them had been boarded up, while the others didn't look like they got much traffic. It seemed perfect to hide a base in or under, but it was _big_.

The same couldn't be said for the two residential areas. Her information had been vague, and I needed to search about ten homes in each area. I was pretty sure I wouldn't finish scouting those within half an hour.

As for the apartment complex, I assumed a secret base would be underneath it, not above ground. Again, it was a big building, and I wouldn't have discounted the hidden entrance being on an upper floor or something, but I started searching from the parking lot.

As for the shop near the Old Quarter, I gathered as many bots as I could in the general area and had them move inside several buildings in the area. Lisa couldn't be specific and it was quite a few different places to search through. Since I highly doubt anyone had a secret base that required walking through the front door of a barbershop, I focused on the back alley for possible entrances.

I got lucky early on, and found a consistent crack that my bots could crawl into in the back alley. It was more than just a hidden door disguised into the brickwork. There was an airtight seal just behind the bricks. Which just made it look even more suspicious. I checked some distances using some other bots entering from the front of the building. One thing I did notice was that the shop was "shorter" than the others around it. The back room was tiny, which wasn't a huge problem for massage parlour, but the wall was sealed off. There was a large gap between the back wall and the alley behind it.

It would take time to get through the hidden door, and I didn't know what sensors were behind it. I tried the plumbing instead. I sent some bots into the massage parlour's toilets while other bots in the alley dropped in through the sewer grates. I had even more swarm around the walls and enter any air vents I could find.

"I think I might have found something," I told Lisa.

"What's it look like?"

"Uh, so far I've only found a garage with a hidden entrance," I said as my bots started giving me a view. "But there's definitely a base under here. Some of these cars look like... PRT armoured trucks."

"Not stolen. He has access to their exact specifications," Lisa muttered.

The bots in the garage searched for a way to get deeper into the base, but the doors were airtight, and the other air vents had a much more complex filtration system. My bots got to work slicing through that one, too.

Meanwhile, the bots exploring through the plumbing and sewage had found a way in. "God, the bathroom's filthy." The seat was up and urine stains were sprinkled liberally around the rim and the floor of the toilet. Clearly this was a very male-dominated facility. Yuck. I guess it was to my advantage that they didn't have a meticulous janitor. It made it easier for my bots to pretend to be dust when there was already dust on the ground.

My bots continued through and into some hallways. I noticed some heavily armed men inside the doors to the garage, and another patrolling the hallway. "I see mercenaries," I told Lisa. "This base is pretty huge."

"Can you find an office? Coil tends to work alone, keep secrets to himself. He'd have a room just for himself where he can direct all his plans where nobody else can overhear."

I continued moving more bots into the base through the routes I had created. Although it was quite secure with many guards and security cameras, I made sure to keep the bots spread out and remain basically unnoticed as I got into each room. Sometimes I had to wait patiently for a guard to open a door, sometimes I managed to find my way in through an air vent or following the electrical wiring.

I managed to find some kind of armoury filled with Tinkertech weapons, the barracks and kitchen for the mercenaries, and a training room. No drugs or cash, and the people occupying it were definitely not gang members. There _was_ an area that I couldn't access - deep into the base, there was an energy barrier that damaged my bots as they tried to cross. Even when I forced a few through, I lost contact with them. Tinkertech shields, probably. Something that could disrupt powers in general, or just a weird interaction with mine?

"Can't find his personal office. There's Tinkertech blocking my bots," I told her. "Shielding technology of some kind. I don't know."

Lisa sighed in disappointment. "You can at least keep the bots in there to keep an eye on other parts of the base, right?"

"Of course. I have to go soon, New Wave meeting and legal stuff. I'll keep scouting the other areas as I get more bots into the city," I told her. The only issue was losing sight over large patches of the city as my bots swarmed and focused on specific buildings, but that was temporary. "I'll either text you or tell you through my bots what I find. We can meet again tonight; I should have everything scouted out by then."

"Sounds good," Lisa told me. "See you tonight."

I made sure to check that nobody was watching in a multi-block radius before I walked out to the street. There was a Wards patrol nearby, but they didn't have a sight line. As I got a few blocks away, I just noticed a shadowy figure pop _through_ a wall, from a building I hadn't covered the insides. She flew through the air at sprinting speed from the third floor, falling as she crossed the alley, and went through the wall of the safehouse Lisa was hiding in. I barely had time to react. My bots started swarming over Lisa for protection, but the cape fired some kind of Tinkertech laser gun, which burned straight through the bots I used for protection and seared into her shoulder.

Lisa fell with a scream. My bots swarmed at the attacker as a massive wave before even forming Abyssal. She turned intangible again and ran through the wall.

I only knew about _one_ cape from around here who could do that. And she was supposed to be in jail. And where the hell did she get that gun? The answer was probably Coil.

I didn't even have time to form my Eunoia costume, I ran back to my warehouse to try to grab Lisa. My wave of bots from around the area all started to converge on Abyssal's base for better protection. No matter which direction she came from, I would be ready to strike back. I spared a few additional bots to tend to Lisa's wounds.

When I got to her, Shadow Stalker popped through another wall. I had been expecting her, but my bots couldn't stop her intangibility. Lisa seemed to be able to anticipate her though. She quickly shoved me aside, and laser cut through where I was standing. The beam caught her in the forearm this time, but I had also managed to armour her better, so the new wound was only superficial.

I was shocked but not surprised. If Lisa hadn't shoved us apart, that beam would have hit me. Shadow Stalker – Sophia Hess – wasn't just trying to kill Lisa, she wanted both of us.

Abyssal took a swing at her, but she popped out again and into another building on the other side of the alley.

"Shadow Stalker?" A young male voice called out from outside. I looked with my bots to see someone flying above, in bright red. Aegis; he must have noticed the noise. Sophia emerged on the roof of the building.

"That's a villain! She's the one who set me up and ruined my life!" Sophia yelled.

I wanted to call her out on her bullshit, but I had to tend to Lisa. Of _course_ Sophia was completely incapable of taking responsibility for her own dumb decisions. Tattletale may have humiliated her during the bank robbery, but she didn't force her to trespass into my house in the middle of the night.

I didn't let her get any closer. Abyssal appeared outside and used all his strength to jump up the fire escapes, and threw one of his massive swords at her. She shifted into her Breaker state and phased straight through it, but Aegis wasn't so lucky. He got smacked by the full weight of the sword. Whoops. I needed to improve my aim. He just got knocked back, since I made sure it was blunt before impact. I let that sword dissolve into a cloud of individual bots, letting them spread through the air and across the roof.

Abyssal readied his other sword and took a second and third leap up, launching off the fire escapes back and forth across the alley to reach the roof quickly. I was hoping to smack her down with a massive swing, but the Wards interfered.

Gallant shot him from below with his blaster-thing. It had a mild effect at best, but it did knock him off balance. Aegis followed up with a flying body check, just enough to knock Abyssal over the edge and send him tumbling to the ground.

I couldn't believe they were actually _helping_ Sophia! She was a convicted criminal! What the hell!

When Abyssal hit the ground, I let him shatter into his constituent pieces, kicking up a big cloud of dark, smokey nanobots that completely enveloped the alley with Gallant in it.

"Shadow Stalker! Why are you even here? Whatever it is, you're only going to make things worse for yourself!" Aegis shouted as he flew after her.

"Stop getting in my way, you fucking boy scout!" Shadow Stalker turned to her beaker state again and dropped through the ceiling and into the building below. Aegis stopped, circling the sides in an attempt to peer through the windows and see where she went.

I, on the other hand, was drawing up all the bots I could dedicate to fixing up Lisa. That laser rifle thing was _nasty_. It wasn't just heat, apparently, it had some kind of physical force behind it. I didn't find a bullet in the wound, but it wasn't entirely heat damage – there would have been more cauterization otherwise. She was bleeding out, and had broken bones to boot. It had narrowly nicked Lisa's aorta and punctured a lung, and the bone fragments weren't helping either.

I sent my nanobots in and swarmed the wound. The bots remained inside to provide some blood clotting. Some of them wrapped around her aorta to reinforce it while others sealed up her lungs. It was only a temporary solution though; she still needed treatment at the hospital. I phoned for an ambulance, hoping they'd get here while Abyssal was still keeping Shadow Stalker at bay.

Lisa was already falling unconscious from shock and blood loss. I sealed up the wound on her arm to prevent any more bleeding. I also reinforced the bone; I think it might have been damaged and at risk for a fracture.

Gallant showed up at the doorway, his hand raised and ready to fire his blaster.

"What are you doing?" I shouted at him. "She's the victim here!"

He paused. I couldn't figure out what he was thinking through his damn face mask. Maybe the sight of a blood-covered girl on the ground either surprised him, or he was just squeamish. Either way, he didn't lower his arms.

I was drawing all the nanobots in the alley back in through the door so Abyssal could reform in front of me to shield us. The rush of darkness and the mass of bots probably threw Gallant off balance as well, increasing his fear and confusion. Simultaneously, I was still trying to keep Lisa's condition stable. I also had my awareness spread across a two-block radius, looking in every single room in all the buildings, trying to find out where Sophia had gone. I was straining my neurobots to their maximum as I tried to handle so many things at once.

Right at that moment, Sophia came through the wall of the building beside mine. She already had her weapon readied, and was aiming it at us. I saw her put a hand on Gallant's shoulder as she fired another shot at us. I leaped in front of Lisa to shield her; I still had plenty of nanobot armour covering my body. I hoped it would be enough to stop that beam weapon.

Gallant fired a shot off his own beam right at the same time. The two different Tinker beams hit me at the same time. The combination of the two of them smashed my armour and knocked me to the floor, away from Lisa.

And I was trapped. Hopeless. It was just like the dumpster again. I was trapped, I couldn't get out. Nobody could come help me. I was going to die, and Sophia would laugh. Sophia had shot me with a fucking laser rifle thing. I was going to die. Lisa was going to die. Gallant had shot me. They were working together. He was going to laugh at me. He was another bully, come to step all over me. I was going to die, Lisa was going to die, and we were trapped. They were going to kill us. It was hopeless, nobody was coming to save us.

_We are here._

_An attack on you is an attack on all of us._

My other brains? They knew if I died, we all died. They/I lashed out with my nanobots. The entire cloud swarmed Gallant and Sophia. I/we had to get them out of here, I/we had to stop them. They were going to kill me/us. I/we could escape this time. I/we couldn't be trapped in the dumpster again. Never again. I/we could save myself. Sophia couldn't bully me/us. Gallant couldn't bully me/us. I wouldn't let them. We wouldn't let them. The nanobots swarmed. They wouldn't reach Lisa. They wouldn't reach me. Us.

Sophia shifted to her Breaker state. She was going to get behind me/us. She was going to shoot me/us in the back. She was going to kill me/us. She was going to kill Lisa. They were trying to pincer us in? We were going to be shot, and we would die. No, I had to stop her. WE could stop her. WE remembered how Sophia went down the first time. WE sent all the nanobots I had to stop her. OUR nanobots swarmed her smoky body, trying to push her away. OUR nanobots discharged everything they had in their microscopic batteries, setting off sparks and fires in the cloud.

Sophia screamed. WE remembered that scream. She was going to hit US, pour soda in OUR hair, or trip US down the stairs. She always retaliated. Ignoring her never worked. NO. This time, WE could hurt her. WE wouldn't let her retaliate. No more soda, no more stolen flute, no more shoving US in the hallways. Sophia was going to kill US, and WE needed to stop her. She shifted back into her normal body. My bots were all around her, some inside her. WE could stop her. WE could see her blood vessels, her nerves, her organs. Either WE killed her or she was going to kill US. WE were trapped. But she was trapped with US this time.

**WE** shredded her from the inside out. Every robot cut everything they could, slicing through every blood vessel, every nerve, every tissue and organ. Those that were trapped, detonated themselves, discharged their batteries, lit themselves on fire. Her scream died. Her movements died. She died. The thud as she hit the ground somehow brought me back to my senses.

I stopped the nanobots, but it was too late. I stopped scrambling away from Gallant.

"Shadow Stalker! Stop! You don't have to do this..." Aegis flew in and his voice died out. He saw Sophia's body on the ground, her skin shredded and bodily fluids leaking out through every orifice. Her body was slightly smoking from burns all over.

Gallant got to his feet. "Aegis, I..."

"What did you do?" Aegis shouted. "Did you... kill her?" He glared at me. Was he turning on me too?

"What did you do to me?" I shouted at Gallant. I scrambled back to Lisa in a protective position. I didn't really know what I did, or why I did it. I just knew I felt an incredibly intense fear. Irrational fear. I didn't know where the feeling came from, but I did know it had happened right after Gallant hit me with his beam weapon. I didn't sense any drugs enter my system, but maybe his blasters packed some kind of direct shock to my brain? I put that thought aside for later. I was thinking clearly now. Or, far more clearly than five seconds ago.

I focused on my bots, spreading my consciousness out.

_Sophia tried to kill you. We couldn't let that happen._

_You had some really weird brain activity happening._

_Yeah, I've never seen anything like that before. A Master power? You reacted badly._

_We tried to help take control again, but you reacted oddly to that too._

_Whatever, danger's over. We took care of Sophia._

_Focus on Lisa._

That was right. I was fine, it was just Lisa who was in danger. I was going to get her help, and the Wards in the way. Abyssal started to reform at the doorway.

"We're going to need to take you in for a statement."

"No," I said. "We need to get her to the hospital."

"The Rig has medical -"

"No way in hell I'm going to let you touch her! You people tried to kill her!" I shouted back. As I gathered up Lisa in my arms, I pointed at Sophia's body. "You were working _with_ her! You just tried to kill me!"

"We weren't -" Gallant began to raise his hands, but I didn't let him. I don't know what he had hit me with last time, but I didn't want him to shoot me with it again, in case it made me go crazy.

"Abyssal! Help me!" I shouted. He was already behind the two Wards, holding one of his swords like a baseball bat. He swung it, hitting both of them with the wide, flat side, smashing both of them to the wall. He pinned them down by the neck with his full weight - I think I may have unconsciously made him even larger than usual.

I took the opening to run out the door, dragging Lisa with me.

The two Wards may have been tough, especially Aegis, but neither of them had extreme strength. Abyssal managed to keep them back. I ran towards the sirens, using my bots to help carry Lisa on my back.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

Honestly I don't really have a thing for courtroom scenes. The closest thing I've had extensive experience with legal cases is Phoenix Wright, and everyone knows how realistic _that_ is. Not the biggest fan of crime dramas either, though I hear real life is much more boring than TV (as it usually tends to be).


	27. Extraction 3

Extraction 3

The good thing about working at the hospital, often in the emergency room, was that you got to know some of the paramedics. The ones who had picked us up recognized me immediately. They were quick to act and took my word, and we worked together quite well to stabilize Lisa. They had some of the supplies I couldn't provide, especially the drugs, oxygen, and emergency blood pack.

I kept watch on Aegis and Gallant through my bots. Abyssal kept them pinned down, at least until things caught fire. The Tinkertech rifle that Sophia was using didn't fare very well, not with my bots attempting to disable the thing. I didn't know if it was self-destruct function or if I had crossed the wrong wire, but the thing sparked, fizzed, and started belching flames hot enough to incinerate my own bots.

It was at that point I let the Wards go and evacuated my bots from the area. Armsmaster and Miss Militia were inbound, anyway. Ventilation, plumbing, cracks in the wall – I took every exit available. What mattered was that I got as much of them out as I could before the fire got hot enough to damage them.

Sophia's body, as well as much of the evidence of both my Tinkering and the fight, was quickly consumed. I didn't do anything to stop the flames; I wanted as little evidence remaining as possible anyway.

Lisa was nearly stable, but just in case, I called Panacea. I hoped she was at the hospital.

"_Hello?"_

"Panacea... it's me, Eunoia. I was attacked... I'm on the way to the hospital."

"_WHAT? Okay, I'll be ready."_

When we got to the hospital, Panacea was there at the entrance. She was ready to heal me, but I pointed to Lisa first. "She's more critical," I said.

Panacea obliged, but said, "She's going to need fluids and nutrients. She hasn't been eating well the past few days." Lisa was still unconscious, but her vitals looked stable, and everything I could see with my bots were fine. Panacea had worked a miracle, as always.

"Thanks," I said.

"Now for you." She put her hand on mine while I flopped down on a chair. "Holy hell, Taylor, what hit you? There's... charred carbon seared into your back."

"Tinkertech rifle," I said.

"Who the hell is crazy enough to attack you? Merchants? Is that Squealer's?"

"Coil. But more specifically, Sophia... I mean, Shadow Stalker. And Gallant. Aegis was there too, but it was mostly Gallant and Shadow Stalker that did the shooting," I rambled a little.

"Gallant? The Wards? Are you sure? Wait, I'm telling Vicky." She pulled out her phone and started texting furiously.

A minute later, my own phone rang.

"_Taylor! Amy said that De... Gallant SHOT you?"_

"Yeah," I said. "With Shadow Stalker."

"_Isn't she in jail or something?"_

"Not any more, apparently."

"_Hold on, I'm going to talk to him."_ She hung up the phone, leaving me to wonder what she was going to say.

"I think I'll just rest here for now. In any case, a supervillain is trying to assassinate her," I said, jerking my thumb at Lisa. "And maybe me. Um, there may be a bodyguard incoming."

"What?"

I formed Abyssal in an unwatched alley near the hospital, and have him storm inside within a minute. I may have given Janice, the admitting clerk, a bit of a scare as well as the hospital security, but he stopped outside our bed before anyone could actually stop him.

Panacea stared at him.

"Don't worry, he's with me. He's a, uh, bodyguard for now." I made Abyssal nod and give a thumbs up, before turning to face outwards in a knightly stance.

"...whatever, just as long as he doesn't get in the way," Panacea said. "I've got more patients, you okay here?"

I nodded and let Amy continue her work.

* * *

I didn't let myself rest, not completely. Who else did Coil have under his control? I remembered that the Travellers had been hired, but I didn't really know the full extent of their powers. As such, I devoted more brains to pay attention around the hospital, just in case there was someone else that would try to sneak in to finish the job. It may have slowed down my search for Coil's base, but my priority was staying alive.

I had been expecting mercenaries, or maybe a small team of capes descending upon the hospital. Maybe if the Empire, if they still believed that Lisa was going to leak their identities. But nobody came, at least until Glory Girl arrived, dragging Gallant along.

I noticed his armour had some fresh dents where Glory Girl was gripping him. I hope she didn't get in trouble for that. She still looked like she was fuming, but I presume she worked out most of her anger on him already.

They stopped when they were confronted by Abyssal. He drew his sword and held it towards Gallant's neck.

"What's _he_ doing here?" I shouted from inside the room. My shout was heard well beyond the room, and I noticed Panacea glare at Gallant as well.

"We had a chat. He wants to apologize," Glory Girl shouted back. She nudged Gallant a bit forward towards us. Abyssal shifted to get in his way and pushed him back.

"I'm not a big fan of the 'shoot first, ask questions later' routine," I said. I got out of my chair so that I was in between the doorway and Lisa's bed. "How about I punch you in the face before you say anything, to make things fair?" I raised my fist, which with my Eunoia costume, was decorated with additional, extra-large syringe needles.

"Is that what happened?" Glory Girl asked, looking even more incensed than before.

"No! Look, I made an error..." Gallant started to say.

"Bullshit! I was trying to save her life, and then YOU shot me!" I shouted. "The reason I got shot in the back? Because YOU were helping Shadow Stalker!"

"Seriously? You said it was just some accidental friendly fire!" Glory Girl said. Her aura flared up, but it didn't seem to affect Gallant.

"It was. It really was," Gallant in a remarkably calm voice. "I was expecting Shadow Stalker in the room when I got in there. Look, to explain, I'm... uh, I'll reveal some of my powers. It's not just a Tinker suit. I can see emotions, they kind of look like... auras around people. And Sophia was, well, a big ball of murderous rage."

"No fucking surprise," I said.

"Well, I'm not sure how well you remember, but... you were pretty angry too. Angry enough to kill. So when I walked in there, the first thing I noticed was an aura of angry, murderous rage. Right in front of someone else who was afraid for her life. I thought I stumbled on Shadow Stalker, so the first thing I did was get ready to shoot her."

"But you shot me anyway."

"No! I stopped! But Shadow Stalker came out of nowhere, she used her power on me. Stabbed me in the back, through my armour. I accidentally released the charge I had ready to go. I'm sorry."

I narrowed my eyes. "If that were true, you'd still have a stab wound in your shoulder. Let me see, then."

"I... I can't take off my costume now," he said. "Sorry, Wards regulations..."

"Oh, that won't be necessary," I said. I extended the "syringes" in my costume to an excessive length. "These babies will get right through those armour gaps."

Gallant sighed. "Alright. If that's what it'll take for you to trust me," he said.

I was honestly surprised that he had agreed. I had been ready for him to deny, make excuses, and I would have had Abyssal shove him out of there. I hesitated before I remembered what I was about to do anyway.

I injected him with bots. Some went on the outside of his skin, others went into his bloodstream. Around his shoulder blade, I found a freshly bandaged wound, with some microscopic metal fragments embedded in the flesh. The bone itself had taken some damage as well, but it had stopped whatever he had been stabbed with. There was some pretty harsh bruising from Glory Girl, too, but no broken bones.

Huh. So he was telling the truth.

"You seem a little less angry," he said. "Could I ask you a question?"

Less angry, but I was still annoyed as hell. He couldn't have picked a worse time to mess up. "Fine."

"Well, um, when I mistook you for Shadow Stalker at first, I was getting ready to hit you with an emotion blast. Usually I go for hopelessness and defeat; it makes most people give up without a fight. It, uh, seemed to react... in a way I didn't think it would."

"So you Mastered me?"

"Um, it's officially classified as Blaster, but..."

Because Master sounded scary, and the first two letters of the PRT was "PR" after all. "Whatever. It reminded me of my trigger event. Not gonna say any more." I certainly didn't _want_ to go through that again.

"Thanks. For understanding. And I'm really sorry, again. And, um, I hope I can do better in the future."

Gallant bowed out and stepped away. I couldn't believe he actually did the whole chivalry thing. I suppose he might have been a genuinely good person if he hadn't made such a fucked up first impression.

"I guess I gotta bring him back. They'll get their panties in a twist if I don't," Glory Girl said, following him out.

Before they were out the doors, though, I noticed a commotion at the front of the hospital. There was some more shouting, and I saw Triumph enter, making a beeline for them. I was expecting him to try to bring me in or interrogate me on the spot, but his attention was entirely on Gallant. I kept watch on them through the bots I left on him. "Oh good, you're here. Quick, we're recalling everyone to the Rig."

"What? Why?"

"It's... ugh, I guess it's not really a secret. Armsmaster and Dragon have been working on an Endbringer prediction program. Right now, it's predicting an attack soon. We want everyone recalled, right now."

"Wait, _here_?" Glory Girl's eyes bulged out.

"Most likely not. It's suggesting a coastal attack, so probably Leviathan, but somewhere in Europe is sitting at 70%. Still, we can't discount an attack on American soil."

"But you aren't telling anyone yet?" Glory Girl asked.

"The Endbringer program is still under development. It hasn't been vetted by WEDGDG yet. We don't want to cry wolf and cause mass panic, if it turns out to be wrong. It's just an internal meeting for now. Consider it a mandatory drill."

"Are we inviting New Wave to the meeting as well?" Gallant asked.

"Might be a good idea, but it's not my call. Come on, we've got a van waiting."

Glory Girl broke off from them. "I gotta tell my teammates."

"Panacea? That's a good idea. Maybe she can give you a quick touch-up," Triumph said to Gallant.

"I... really don't think she's in the mood to deal with me right now," he said. "I'll get by on my own."

They followed Glory Girl back to our room, and she waved her sister over as well.

"So," Triumph said as he noticed Abyssal. He cleared his throat a few times, like the words he was intending to say suddenly disappeared. "We, uh, were having an Endbringer drill at the PRT. I could talk the higher-ups into letting you join in, if you want."

"Actually, it might be a real Endbringer!" Glory girl exclaimed in a loud whisper.

I looked to Lisa. I didn't want to leave her alone right now. Sure, Abyssal could hang around her, but I still felt more secure being with her in person.

Lisa crossed her arms. "That would be a _hell no_ from me. The PRT's got moles in it. The people who want me dead have agents in your organization. I'll be assassinated ten minutes after I set foot in your base."

"Nobody in the PRT is going to want to kill you," Triumph assured her.

"Oh, what would you know, rookie?" Lisa snapped at him. "Every major gang has at least one PRT employee in their pocket. Coil's got some in leadership positions."

"And how would you know that?"

"Take a wild guess. How do you think the mayor's niece got kidnapped so easily? Exactly when the Protectorate was mostly out of town, accurate to the hour."

That seemed to hit Triumph more personally than I expected. "What do you know about that?"

"Shadow Stalker wasn't lying. You _are_ a villain," Gallant muttered.

"Skirting pretty close to the rules, aren't you?" Lisa retorted.

"You're not exactly trying to hide it right now," Gallant countered. "So, what, you work for Coil?"

"Wait, she's a _villain_?" Glory Girl shouted, mostly at me.

"_Used to,"_ Lisa emphasized. "That's why he wants me dead."

"You need to come to headquarters. Even if you don't want to, I could arrest you right now," Triumph said. "It's for your own protection. You'll have my word that no harm will come to you."

"What part of 'assassinated' don't you get?" Lisa said. "People on Coil's payroll don't give a damn about your word."

"You think you'll be safer here?" Triumph asked.

Lisa gave a telling look towards Abyssal. "Yeah. I do."

"Would you at least come in to give a statement about the incident an hour ago?"

"Not right now," I said. "I'm still feeling injured. And traumatized. Because _he_ shot us." I pointed at Gallant.

Gallant looked a little annoyed, probably because he could see how not-traumatized I was. But he didn't contradict me, either. "I said I was sorry," he muttered quietly. I could barely hear it through his armour.

"Fine. Please come in when you're feeling better," Triumph said. "Gallant, we need to go."

"But Tri-"

"Pick your battles, Gallant. This isn't one we can win, and we have more important things right now." They walked out together without another word to us.

"So. I thought you said you weren't going to hang out with villains any more?" Glory Girl said, turning to the two of us.

"Hey! I told you I'm trying to quit. And it's pretty hard to just stop being a villain when _this_ is what I get," Lisa said.

"Vicky, don't be too hard on her. I told you she'd been nice, and she wants to help take down her old boss," I chided my teammate.

"That just means she's a backstabber. You need to watch out, Taylor." Glory Girl flared her fear aura. As much as Lisa tried to hide its effects, she did scoot further back on her bed a little.

"Vicky! Not here! There are other patients! You're gonna give someone a heart attack!" Panacea hissed.

"Right. Sorry," she said, and the aura died down. "Still, I don't trust her."

"Backstabbing implies I was on his side at some point. He practically made me his slave, and now you're blaming _me_ for that? Not everyone can just punch their problems and fly away. Fuck you, Little Miss easy-way-out."

Glory Girl flew forward and pushed past Abyssal. Not that I could stop her. "I'll show you who's little-"

"Lisa! Vicky!" I shouted, getting in between them. "Just, cool it! Vicky, give her a chance! Lisa... why do you have to pull the asshole schtick right now?"

Neither apologized, but at least they stopped glaring at each other.

"I think we should call a team meeting anyway, if Armsmaster's predictions are right. I'm going to go phone mom." Glory Girl floated away, and Panacea followed.

* * *

"How are you holding up?" Lisa asked after we both had enough time to cool down.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"There's something bothering you. I know you're trying not to think about what just happened too much, but..."

"I've got over a thousand brains. I've thought about it plenty," I said.

"You've _avoided_ it a thousand times harder than anyone else could," Lisa countered. She took my hand. "Taylor, you didn't do anything wrong, but you just need to really get over it. So far you've just been turning it into anger at Gallant. Right now you seem to hate him as much as your bullies, but he hasn't done nearly as much as they did to you. And for what it's worth, I actually believe his apology."

"So what? Can't I be mad at a guy?"

"He ain't the problem, he's the punching bag. The problem is that you killed Sophia. That's bugging you. Actually, wait. It's not the killing that bugs you." She scruitinized me carefully, doing her thing again. "It's the fact that it _doesn't_ bother you that's bothering you. Huh."

Ah. I guess I hadn't realized it myself until Lisa put it into words. Sure, I'd killed someone before. Bakuda. She undoubtedly deserved to die, though. She killed hundreds, held a city hostage. It wasn't just my decision, even the heroes, and other villains, and the PRT, and the _legal system_ declared it was totally okay to kill her.

Sophia, though?

Of all the times I had desperately wished or imagined to get revenge on my bully, I had never imagined it would feel so easy. I thought I wasn't that kind of person. The kind of person _Sophia_ was.

As much as Sophia had tortured or hurt me, I didn't want to be her. I thought I was better. And now I could remember her face, sliced apart, oozing blood and other bodily fluids out. I could remember her _organs_, electrocuted and liquefied by my bots. I always thought I was a better person than her, not worse. There was no kill order on her. Even the Wards were trying to talk her down at the end.

"Taylor."

Maybe that was why I had been so mad at Gallant? It wasn't even the fact that he shot me. The merchants had shot at me before, and I didn't exactly hold a grudge. It was like business – I was a hero, they were villains. It's just how things go.

But these were the supposed heroes. It was partly the fact that they were trying to talk Sophia down like she could be redeemed. It was, in all fairness, the _heroic _thing to do. And I was on the opposite side of that. I didn't want to believe that. I couldn't – Gallant _had_ to be wrong. Because if he was right...

"Taylor, talk to me."

Sophia was Shadow Stalker. She had fans, because she did have a good record of catching criminals. One of the best among the Wards. She wasn't a random killer like Bakuda had been. I wouldn't acknowledge her as a hero, no. But she wasn't a villain on the scale of Bakuda. She was just... a personal nemesis. For whatever reason, she'd picked on _me_. Was that enough reason to kill someone?

Unlike Bakuda, I didn't really have many people on my side this time. The PRT sure as hell wouldn't like it. There was no Kill Order on her. And yet, killing her had basically felt almost the same as killing Bakuda. Worse, it wasn't even a quick, clean, kill. I'd _mutilated_ Sophia. I put her organs into a blender.

It felt...

I don't know. But it didn't feel _bad_. And that was more worrying to me than anything. I wanted to be a hero. Was that what heroes did?

"Taylor!" Lisa grabbed my chin with one arm. "You need to talk. Or listen. Look, I'm the last one who should be telling you not to kill anyone again. Because I sure as hell don't believe it. Coil needs to die, for one. Just make sure you have good reasons for it. And I don't mean legal reasons, because the law's fucked me over more than enough."

"I really don't think I should be taking psychological advice from a villain. Former villain."

"Yeah, well, it's all you're getting until you can book your own appointment with the psych ward," Lisa smirked. "Come on. It's good to know where to set your own boundaries. Self-defense? Fine. Just dandy. Nilbog, or the Slaughterhouse Nine? You don't even need self-defense to justify killing them. You don't _need _to feel regret with them."

"Sophia wasn't anything close to that. She was... small-time," I argued. "I could have just stopped her."

"Shadow Stalker was a killer. She'd nearly killed people just for fun before she was forced into the Wards. She had a chance to redeem herself by staying in jail and getting out on good behaviour. She gave that up. Her choice. The only way to stop a rabid dog is to put it down, end of story," Lisa said firmly. "Trust me, not everyone can be redeemed. Just because she's too incompetent to kill hundreds of people doesn't mean she didn't fantasize about it all the time."

"Fine. It just wasn't what I imagined being a hero would be like, you know? Not when I was growing up playing Alexandria with a towel on my back."

Lisa snorted. "We all work with what we got. At least you still have a team. Speaking of which..."

Glory Girl and Panacea both returned.

"Carol says we're calling a team meeting. It's actually going to be an Endbringer attack, you think?" Panacea asked.

"I'm good enough to go. I'll let the nurse know, I'm feeling good enough to be discharged. How about you, Lisa?"

"Can I come with, actually?" Lisa asked.

"Seriously?" Glory Girl crossed her arms. "Tay, you'd better keep an eye on her."

"I'm not joining New Wave. But, uh, I'd rather be surrounded by a family of heroic capes for now. Not that I'm doubting you – or Abyssal's – abilities, but Coil's got money, and there are plenty of mercenaries out there..."

"Fine. But I'm not giving you a ride. And I'm not giving _him_ a ride, no way. Sorry, bud," she said to Abyssal.

"I think Abyssal can give the two of us a lift," I said. I didn't want to leave Lisa alone anyway. "We'll catch up at your house."

"Actually, it'll be at Aunt Sarah's. But yeah, see you there."

I waved as the sisters departed. Lisa got up and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

"Can you make him a horse?" she asked.

_"A horse?"_ I exclaimed.

Lisa nodded. "Well, yeah. It's a good way to make him run faster, and it fits his theme. Knights ride horses. I'd rather not have to get carried on his armour."

"I could make it softer."

"Yeah, but it's not as cool that way."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "You just want a horsey ride, don't you?"

She threw her arms up in the air. "Fine! Okay! I wanted you to make a pony for me. You wanted to be Alexandria, I wanted to be a princess swept away by a handsome knight. At least one of us can get our childhood dreams fulfilled."

I laughed. "I could just carry you, you know."

"Taylor, as much as I appreciate you saving my life, your back was almost as uncomfortable as Bitch's dogs. Gimme my damn pony."

* * *

Abyssal's pony was a malformed mess. It had taken me hours to figure out Abyssal with Lisa, and several days of practice after that to get him to move fluidly. And he was human-shaped. I was used to humans. Horses... not so much. In fact, my new creation looked a little more like... a deformed human with a long face, crawling on the ground. It certainly didn't _move_ like a horse, because I had never studied a horse's gait. And galloping was uncomfortable anyway. Too bouncy. I wanted a smooth ride.

"You sure know how to kill a childhood dream, Taylor," Lisa said as she stared upwards at the monstrosity.

"Shut up and climb on, this is the best you're getting."

I decided to name it the Roamer.

While Abyssal "rode" up front, Lisa and I sat in the back. I was still wary of snipers from Coil, so I maintained my focus on our immediate surroundings, and had the Roamer's bots ready to shift into a protective shell in an instant.

It never came, though.

"Taylor, how's it going with Coil's base search?" Lisa asked.

"I think I found them all, if he only has three. The one near Old Quarter, the construction site near Medhall, and the house in the suburbs. Problem, though, he isn't in any of them, as far as I can see."

"Any snipers?"

"Nothing within a mile, unless they have some really advanced camouflage," I told her.

Lisa thought for a moment. "Actually, I think we might be safe for now," she said. "I was wondering why he hadn't sent anyone to finish me off."

"Why do you say that? I didn't think Coil would be the type to give up so quickly. Didn't you say he preferred to tie up loose ends?"

"He does. But if his power is anything like mine, or other Thinkers, then Endbringers throw a wrench into everything. He's cautious. He would prefer to secure what he has rather than take a risk to gain something more. Even though his power makes taking risks less risky."

"I'm definitely seeing more people entering his bases. None with a cape costume though, all mercenaries or spies," I informed her. "Lots of PRT uniforms."

"Yup. He's hunkering down. Since he has access to the PRT, he probably was told about Armsmaster's Endbringer prediction too." She took a long, meditative breath. "Taylor, are you planning on joining the Endbringer attack?"

It was in the news so often, there were multiple papers dedicated to the Endbringers alone. Their attacks, the aftermath, recovery, and prediction. Their frequent attacks was a never-ending news cycle. It had crossed my mind often when I fantasized about being a cape, but ironically, I had been so busy or distracted since I actually _became_ a cape that I hadn't given it too much thought.

I was glad that Lisa had advised me to become a healer cape. I wouldn't have to be in the thick of the fighting. I knew that Panacea had been there before – what kind of friend and teammate would I be if I let her go by herself? From what I imagined, it would probably be as bad as the ER when Bakuda went on her bombing run. Maybe even worse.

"I think I'll go. Help out how I can."

"Good. I'll be going, too. Do what I can to help out."

I raised an eyebrow. As much as Lisa was my friend, I still didn't trust her not to have ulterior motives. It was only a question of how beneficial those ulterior motives were to me.

"Coil's not stupid enough to break the Endbringer Truce. As counterintuitive as it sounds, the safest place for me in the short term is at the Endbringer attack. I won't be at the front lines, anyway," Lisa explained. "Oh, he doesn't give a damn about the unwritten rules. He'd expose people's identities, assassinate them in their sleep at home. To him, they're nothing but hurdles. The Endbringer Truce, though, that's practically law. Governments have policies in place. The PRT, the Guild, the Kingsmen, The Super Sentai... they'll all actively enforce the Truce. Coil doesn't want international heat coming down on him. He won't touch me there."

"If you say so," I said.

We continued to ride until we got to the Pelhams' house. I had already seen most of the others arrive before us. We dismounted on the front lawn, where Abyssal stood guard.

"Well, I certainly wasn't expecting new members," Mrs. Pelham said as she opened the door. The entire Pelham family and Dallon family, except for Mark Dallon, was sitting in the living room. Dad was there too.

"Um, hello, Lady Photon," Lisa said with a small wave as she stepped inside. "I'm Lisa."

Mrs. Dallon crossed her arms. "You're that villain that Taylor was talking about," she said.

"Former villain!" Lisa insisted. "Not like it was my choice. And Coil still wants me assassinated for trying to quit."

"So you're coming to us for protection?"

"Basically? Taylor's a friend, and I feel obligated to warn you guys mercenaries and assassins might start coming after you to get to her. In order to get to me."

Mrs. Dallon shook her head. "And you just put us on his radar. Why didn't you go to the PRT instead?"

"Because he has spies there. I should know, I was one of them for a time. I hacked into most of the ENE servers, and I'm not even a software Tinker. He has actual people working IN the PRT right now."

"Well, that'll be hard to verify until we actually capture him," Mrs. Dallon said.

"And him? Is he joining?" Eric asked, his eyes locked on Abyssal, who was standing out on the front lawn.

"No, he's just a friend," Lisa said quickly, covering for me. "Not going to reveal his identity."

"A mutual friend," I added, since Lisa's word didn't have much weight among New Wave.

"Fine. Now's not the best time to be recruiting, anyway. Vicky, if you would?" Mrs. Pelham said.

"Oh! Right, so we were in the hospital, and I dragged Gallant over to explain why he shot Taylor, so..."

"Wait, back up. Taylor, you got _shot_? Who the hell is this Gallant?" Dad shouted.

"He said it was an accident. Friendly fire, while Sophia was trying to kill me."

"Sophia. Wait, you mean Shadow Stalker. Isn't she supposed to be in jail?" Mrs. Dallon asked. Dad looked at me in shock.

"Yeah, apparently she broke out. Anyways, Lisa figures she was trying to assassinate her, and decided to kill me while she was at it. Both of them shot me, Sophia hit Lisa, and I had to take her to the hospital. Panacea healed both of us."

"Is she still going to be a problem?" Dad asked. "Where's she hiding out? If I find out Alan is still going to defend that..."

"She, uh, won't be a problem for now," I said. I pointed out the window at Abyssal. "He took care of her."

"Yay team." Crystal said. "Glad everyone here's alive and well. Is that what this meeting is about? Is another villain targeting New Wave?"

Lisa gave her an uncertain hand wave. "As much as I want Coil off my back, that's not the important news. Glory Girl, why don't you tell them." Everyone looked surprised that there was more important news than a member of New Wave nearly being killed.

"What? Oh, yeah! So, Triumph comes along and says they're predicting and Endbringer attack soon. They were having an emergency meeting, so I thought WE should have an emergency meeting too."

"HERE?" nearly everyone shouted at once.

Vicky shrugged. "Dunno, they weren't clear on that."

We all sat down quietly, thinking. "Is the report accurate?" Mr. Pelham asked. "Nobody's managed to reliably predict an Endbringer attack more than an hour ahead of it actually happening."

Endbringers were inherently unpredictable; no Thinker or program could truly prepare anyone. Sure, there were telescopes pointed at the Simurgh and deep-ocean robotic sonars that kept track of Leviathan. But both of them could move remarkably fast; a few hours of warning was the _most_ people got. It was often less with Behemoth, who seemed to swim below Earth's crust. After the theory that the Endbringers were just extreme parahumans had mostly been thrown out, people toyed with the idea that they were somewhat robotic. Robotic meant predictable.

That theory were just as quickly thrown out; many had tried and nobody was any more successful than the other. It didn't leave people with much hope when someone else came along claiming to be able to predict the Endbringers. Even if it were people as accomplished as Armsmaster and Dragon working together.

"Likely no better than previous ones. Like anything involving the Simurgh," Lisa answered. "Still, we're overdue for an Endbringer attack, I think."

"True enough," Mrs. Pelham said. "We've all participiated in Endbringer attacks before in some capacity or another, except you, Taylor. We might as well discuss what you plan to do."

"Um, what's your usual plan?" I asked.

"The kids are allowed to be on search-and-rescue duties only," Mr. Pelham said quickly.

"Except Panacea. There's high demand for healers," Mrs. Dallon added.

"Hey, you said I could be on the offensive teams after I graduated!" Crystal said. "I only missed the last one because I missed the call-out on campus..."

Mrs. Dallon sighed heavily. "I can't stop you, Crystal, but I really want you to be careful. And think about it. There's no shame in sticking with search and rescue or defense."

"Mom, I'm one of the best Blasters around. I'm one of the few capes that can hit either Behemoth _or _Simurgh. We need every Blaster we can get," she insisted.

Mr. Dallon only sighed equally.

"Well, I'm going no matter which Endbringer it is," Amy said. "They need healers, no matter what."

"And if Amy's going, I'm going," Vicky insisted.

"I'll go too. Same reason as Amy." I instinctively avoided Dad's gaze as I said that.

"Taylor, you can't..."

"I can't do nothing!" I insisted.

"Mr. Hebert, the healing tents are generally quite far from the actual fighting. It's about as safe as anyone can reasonably be in an Endbringer fight," Mr. Pelham said.

"It's still an Endbringer fight," Dad pointed out.

"I can save lives, dad! What the hell's the point of having powers if I can't even do that?" I said firmly.

To my surprise, most of New Wave nodded in agreement.

"You don't..." Dad started to say.

Mr. Pelham interrupted him, holding his hand up. "I understand all too well, Danny. I've seen the destruction up close. I've watched my wife, and my children, fly off over ruined cities to stop an unstoppable monster. I'm not as mobile as they are, so half the time I feel useless while they rush towards danger. Whatever you think... well, I'm not going to lie to you. It's worse. But that's the point. I've seen how much suffering there is during those attacks. And as much as I fear losing my family to those monsters, I couldn't call myself a hero if I just ignored _everyone else_ I've seen suffering even more."

"I know you fight hard for the Dockworkers," Mrs. Pelham added. "Have you ever considered just... giving up, letting the gangs take over the area and forcibly recruit the people under you? Walk away, and tell yourself it's not your problem?"

Dad gritted his teeth and let out a laboured sigh.

"I get it. I get it. I don't have to like it," he said.

"I'll stay safe," I said.

"I'll make sure she does," Lisa added.

We all turned to her. "What can _you_ do?" Vicky asked, maybe a little too harshly.

"I'm a Thinker. A pretty strong one, if I do say so myself. Put me in the command post and I'll make sure the fight goes as well as possible. At least, give the rest of you some insights and warnings."

We all sat around for a little while longer, periodically checking the websites, the news, and our phones for any updates about the potential Endbringer attack. And then, it came. Everywhere at once, from text messages to TV interruptions to the Guild website to mass emails, people were reporting major Endbringer movement. Flights were instantly being diverted or cancelled, evacuation orders were in place. Just like how we practiced in school.

Armsmaster had been partially right after all.

Behemoth was emerging in Spain.

* * *

**Author's Note**:

Well, maybe this seems like a slightly anticlimactic chapter. Characters apologizing and being reasonable? How strange.

The Endbringer attack has been slightly overdue... and I'm not quite ready to trash Brockton Bay yet.

I try to stay out of current events, but this coronavirus needs a pretty important PSA. One thing to note is how scary exponential growth is. A lot of people think the whole quarantine thing is an overreaction. But it isn't. Given the current data, cornoavirus cases seem to double every 2-3 days.

Here's some quick math. Let's pretend 1% of the population is infected. That's actually still hard to notice - one person in a hundred? Most people still won't have any close friend/family that's infected. New York has a population of 8 million. 1% of that is 80,000. 80,000 new cases in three days. Can the hospitals handle that? Three more days later, it's 160,000 new cases. 240,000 new cases in less than a week. The hospitals definitely can't handle that. And that's only starting at 1%, where most people still think it's "not that widespread" or "barely noticeable." This is the kind of thing that needs to be brought under control while it's still sitting at 0.01%, because by the time it gets to 1%, it's already overwhelming. And the scariest thing about this disease is that it is infectious BEFORE people develop symptoms.

As for Taylor, she is perfectly capable of full exponential growth - she only doesn't want to, because she's got it pretty good as a New Wave teammate. For now.


	28. Extraction 4

Extraction 4

Vicky stood up. "C'mon, Ames, Taylor. We're gonna be some big damn heroes, right? Let's go." She was already putting on her tiara, the last part of her costume. I noted how she avoided looking at Lisa.

Amy nodded. "Right." She flipped up her hood as well.

"I'm guessing he's going as well?" Glory Girl asked as we got out the front door. Abyssal was still there, standing guard, still as a statue.

"Of course he is," Lisa said quickly for me. "Where I go, he goes."

"How do you even talk to him?" Panacea asked.

"Oh, the two of us have an understanding," she said, walking up to him. She put a hand on his waist-plates, which was nearly at her shoulder height. "Isn't that right, big boy?"

I made Abyssal wrap a hand over her protectively. Lisa gave the two sisters a saucy smile.

Glory Girl's eyes danced between Lisa's small frame and Abyssal's colossal one. "So, uh, the two of you... how?"

"Oh, we make it work," Lisa said, wagging her eyebrows. "Why, do you want to join? He's a bit much for me alone, but if you want to share..."

"Nope! NOPE! Never mind. Ames, come on, let's go. We'll see you there!" Glory Girl quickly shouted. She picked up Panacea and flew off.

"Thanks for covering for me," I whispered to Lisa.

She gave me a wink. "It's fun to keep up the charade," she said. Then she pointed behind me. "By the way, I think someone wants to say goodbye."

"Taylor." Dad was standing at the doorway. He gestured for a hug.

I walked up to him and gave him what he was asking for. He hugged me back harder than I could remember. "Be careful, my little owl."

I paused. I didn't remember him calling me that since Mom died. "Don't worry, dad. I'll be careful. I... I have _friends_ watching out for me." It had been nearly as long since I was able to say something like that as well.

He watched us go as Lisa and I climbed on Roamer and rode off with Abyssal.

Through my other brains, we could already see many heroes – and villains – gathering at the PRT headquarters. On that note, I knew I couldn't take all my brains with me. Over the past few weeks, I had grown to literal tons of brains spread across the city and beyond. I could fluff up some of my costume and maybe some wouldn't notice, but that wouldn't even get me a tenth of them.

_What's going to happen to us?_

Yeah, that was bothering me. I'd never left the range of the rest of my brains before. I could preserve _some _of them – collecting as many bots as I could while we made our way to the PRT headquarters, picking up some of my cloned brains along the way. I could incorporate them into Abyssal's mass, or Roamer's.

But it wouldn't be all of them.

_Are we going to die?_

_Is it really dying if a perfect copy of you lives on?_

_Are we perfect copies of each other?_

Endbringer attacks were known to cause existential crises, but not like this.

The best thing I could do was, for lack of a better word, synchronize. Even though they were all originally clones of me, we all had slightly different experiences. Even though we were all connected, we each held slightly different memories, since no single brain could handle _all_ the memories and thoughts of the entire network all at once. The best I could do was try to preserve as much as I could in all the brains I _could_ take with me. We'd all become near-identical copies of each other once again, and I wasn't sure how much of... _me_ I would be losing.

The ones I couldn't take with me I would try to lock down. Maintain their structure, bury them underground in a safe and stable place, then lock the bots into a permanent state. Hopefully they wouldn't be disturbed and I could "revive" them when I came back.

_Brains aren't just the structure, otherwise brain death would be as easy to reverse as restarting the heart,_ one of my brains reminded me. I think it was one of the ones along the highway to the landfill. Parts of me certainly had reasons to be doubtful of this technique. We had learned quite a bit about the brain, obviously, not just from formal research but also from building the brains myself.

_But my nanobots don't undergo cell death. A hard reboot might work._

_Memories aren't stored in structure,_ parts of me argued with myself.

_Then we just need to copy over as many memories as possible to be safe. _In the end, it was a circular argument. I had to go to the Endbringer attack, and I couldn't bring them all. Doing something was better than nothing.

_It's the best we can get_, my other brains agreed.

It was strange going from thousands of brains down to barely a hundred. Brain after brain went silent as I locked them into a stasis, without even knowing if it would really work. My vision of the city and its outskirts shrank down rapidly. At least the brains that were at the outer edges, the newest ones, didn't have many unique memories to synchronize.

But it got a bit harder to as we got further into the city. Roamer ran to the PRT building as slowly as we could without missing the teleport schedule. I kept eavesdropping on the announcements as we went. The brains that could safely be moved into our path and picked up, I did. Those that I couldn't, I didn't have that much time to synchronize, and hoped for the best.

I could feel my perception shrink a little bit at a time.

_Ugh this feels weird._

_It's like getting blindfolded while drunk._

_None of us have ever had alcohol before._

_We know what I mean!_

_We'll let you know if an afterlife exists when you bring us back._

_I'm pretty sure it doesn't work that way._

_I'm pretty sure nobody's sure how any of it works at all._

_See you all on the other side._

* * *

We arrived at the PRT building a lot heavier than when we started. Aside from the brains I was picking up, I also grabbed as many loose nanobots as I could. I had no idea how many I would actually need, after all. There was already a large gathering of parahumans out front. Glory Girl was already waiting for us, hovering near the entrance with her sister.

"Jeez guys, I almost thought you weren't going to show!" Glory Girl exclaimed. "I was almost going to go back and fetch you. Ames insisted on waiting down here, because if they're going to delay for anyone, they'd delay for her."

"Thanks, Amy. I wouldn't abandon you," I said. "We just had to detour for some... supplies."

"Come on, we've only got a few minutes to go. There's an express elevator to the roof." It was a massive cargo elevator, so all of us, including Abyssal, as well as some additional PRT equipment and employees could all fit in at once.

It was strange not being able to see the whole city any more. Not being able to see where the villains were. But I didn't really have to. Many of them were right in front of my face. I shouldn't have been surprised to see some villains there – that was the entire point of the Endbringer Truce. Kaiser himself had shown up, as well as Stormtiger, Victor, and Othala. There were also a few independent capes I didn't recognize and, naturally, the Protectorate members. None of the Wards were there - I suppose they weren't allowed to join for the obvious safety concerns.

"Hey. Come on, Armsmaster's already giving out the armbands," Glory Girl said as she ushered us in. She was looking questioningly at Abyssal and his mount. I saw that she was already wearing some electronic band on her upper left arm.

Armsmaster was already in the middle of explaining the armbands when we got inside. "...translate if you don't speak Spanish. Make sure you listen to any evacuation order. Dragon and I have been working on predictive algorithms for Behemoth. If it says to evacuate, it's because we're predicting a massive energy burst within the next five seconds." His eyes flickered to Amy. "This includes healers. Although we're positioning the medical camp as far away as reasonably possible, healers should still pay attention to these alerts."

And here I was under the impression that we had a decent chance at surviving if we stayed away from the front lines. I took an armband. "Please state your name for the registry," came a soft feminine voice.

"Eunoia," I said.

"Eunoia registered. Status: Healthy. Default language: English. Translations: On." The band rattled off several other settings, which I mostly ignored.

I noticed that Abyssal was having trouble with his. Especially since he didn't talk.

"Please state your name for the registry," his band was repeating.

"**ABYSSAL**," he said, causing some heads to turn.

"Please state your name for the registry," his band repeated.

I rolled my eyes. Figures that a voice making the entire band vibrate probably messed up with its noise-cancelling technology. "Abyssal," I said for him.

"Abyssal registered. Error: no heartbeat detected. Status: Critical. Please seek medical attention. Medical beacon activated. Error: no brainwaves detected. Status: Deceased. Error." Abyssal pulled the band off his arm and threw it away. I wondered how the band worked for other parahumans who had breaker forms that didn't have human physiology.

"Strider is running late, but he's due in three minutes," Armsmaster announced. "Everybody heading to Spain, stay OUTSIDE the large circle until Strider arrives. There will be several teleport jumps before we get to Spain. Do not step outside the Strider's teleportation field in between jumps or you WILL be left behind. Dragon will be providing a heavy troop transport the rest of the way."

We did as we were told. There was a circle clearly drawn on the ground, which I presumed was Strider's limit. The center also had a smaller circle with some communications equipment and cameras. The space in front of us seemed to warp for a second, and then suddenly there were almost fifty capes in front of us, and the platform was pretty crowded.

"Go, go, go! Get on the platform!" Armsmaster shouted. "Departure in twenty seconds!"

We all rushed on. Thankfully, there was still plenty of room. I noticed there was one guy with a mostly-blue uniform and aviator goggles in the center. He must have been Strider. He said something into his microphone, probably talking to people at the next destination. "Ready to go! Jumping!" he said.

"Make way for more capes at each jump!" Armsmaster added as Strider used his power and teleported all of us at once.

I got a queasy feeling, followed by a mild electric shock as we moved. With a flash, the background suddenly changed. No longer was I looking over the Bay at downtown, we were suddenly in completely unfamiliar lands. I heard some people shouting in French. We couldn't have jumped to France already, right?

Another twenty capes or so ran onto the platform. Legend himself was yelling at them, "Departure in twenty seconds!" We all crowded together even more. Strider again checked the screens and cameras that had been set up for him, and then radioed someone before speaking to the rest of us again. "We're crossing the Atlantic this time, this might be a bit uncomfortable."

Oh, so we hadn't crossed the ocean yet. The last bunch of capes must have been some Canadians. We were probably in Montreal. I suddenly felt a stronger electric shock and nausea before the sudden flash.

Suddenly we were under the blazing-hot sun of late-afternoon Spain. There was a distinct _lack_ of total devastation that I had expected from a Behemoth attack, though. We were at a makeshift airstrip, with multiple advanced-looking planes all lined up in front of us. If it wasn't Tinkertech, it was probably some kind of secret military thing. The planes were bigger than any I had ever seen before; it looked like it could eat a jumbo jet. They would have no problems with fitting massive capes like Abyssal.

"All high-level Blasters and Movers to the left! Front-line fighters, to the LEFT! Support Capes, healers, melee, Thinkers, to the RIGHT! Non-combatants, to the RIGHT! If you're unsure of your role, go RIGHT as well!" Legend had taken charge over Armsmaster with all the capes from North America. He showed us the way with some very nicely colour-coded laser shows.

There wasn't much time to loiter and take things in; we all followed the coloured lines to our appropriate plane. Glory Girl, Panacea, Shielder, and I moved into the right transport. I watched as Lady Photon and Laserdream quickly separated and went to the left. I had Abyssal and Roamer move with Tattletale, slightly separated from the New Wave group.

As for other capes I recognized, I noticed Kaiser and Stormtiger had gone to the left, while Othala and her husband joined us. I saw Armsmaster go to the other side, while Legend flew off on his own – he could probably get to the fight faster than the plane could, after all.

The interior of the plane was pure utility. There was no seating room, in fact, there was just barely standing room with some straps to keep us steady. Everything seemed stripped out for minimal weight; the greatest luxury on this plane were floor lights directing us where to stand. Not even any windows. It did have a massive screen up front, but I suspected we weren't getting an in-flight movie. As we all strapped in, Dragon's voice came in over the speakers and the screen flickered to life. "Please secure yourselves quickly. This unit will be flying into the rear combat support camp. Estimated time of arrival is twenty minutes."

"I wonder why Strider doesn't just bring us all the way there," Glory Girl said aloud.

"Can't risk bringing him into a war zone," Tattletale told her. "He's the only one capable of long-range teleportation. We lose him, every Endbringer fight in the future will only have local capes fighting."

"That's not the only reason. It also gives a little extra time for a mission briefing," another Cape told us. He wasn't from Brockton Bay, and I assumed from his costume design that he was a hero.

I was barely in the seat (stand?) and still adjusting my the belts when I felt us accelerate powerfully but steadily. It almost felt like the UFO ride at the amusement park that pinned me to the wall from the acceleration. Mere minutes later we heard the distinct sound of a sonic boom. As the acceleration ended and the plane reached cruising speed, Dragon's voice returned. A 3D map of the area surrounding the shores of Southern Spain appeared on the screen in front of us.

"Forty minutes ago, at ten-forty Eastern time, Behemoth appeared approximately sixty kilometers north of the city of Gibraltar in the Sierra de Grazalema national park. He appears to be on a direct path towards Gibraltar while local capes, army, and navy have been mobilized."

A little Behemoth icon showed its current location and path, as well as the two transports from Dragon departing the city of Seville. In dotted lines, it showed what would happen in less than half an hour - our plane would be landing almost five kilometers behind the Endbringer, while the other plane would be dropping off its passengers dangerously close, only one kilometer away.

"The territory is being evacuated, but we don't know if the area is the true target. His target may be to cause earthquakes and landslides to dam off the Strait, which would cause massive upheaval and disruption to the entire Mediterranean. Since there is a low resident civilian population, the role for healers is to focus on cape healing, with high Blaster rated capes receiving priority. The faster we can stop Behemoth, the lower the death rate, and the lower the chance of international disaster."

My hand wound its way to Panacea's, and I gave her a squeeze. I know that she was under pressure to heal as many people as possible in Brockton Bay, to the point that her sister almost had to forcibly take her away from the hospital to make sure she took breaks. I knew she was stressed out by the small population at home as it was; a giant, densely populated city facing Behemoth would be overwhelming.

Lisa tapped me on the shoulder. She quickly said, "You don't have to save everybody. Neither of you can. Don't sweat it. Just do your part." I nodded. Panacea didn't seem to take much stock in her opinion, though.

"All capes with healing powers will be situated here, at the mobile healing base." An image of a large platform on huge tracks came up on screen. It had an entire building mounted on top of it. The image zoomed out quickly to the map, so I didn't get to appreciate its design. "We will maintain a minimum safe distance of ten kilometers. Listen to your armbands. If Behemoth changes course and we need a fast evacuation, drop whatever healing you are doing and evacuate. Behemoth has had a history of directly attacking healers, and he can cover the distance in as little as six minutes."

This was definitely a different policy compared to the hospital.

"Thinkers are to travel to the Command base, which is located on another mobile base next to the healing base. Any insight and deductions, both long- and short-term, as well as analysis for future Behemoth fights is greatly appreciated." The image now showed another vehicle, smaller but similar to the medical platform, covered in satellite dishes and antennas. It was still massive by any measure, though.

I looked over to Tattletale, who gave me a nod. At least she wasn't far from me. I knew it would be the height of stupidity for anyone to try to hurt her in the middle of an international Truce situation, but I couldn't shake the fear away completely.

"All capes with Mover ratings without offensive Blaster capabilities will focus on helping evacuate injured heroes and transporting them from the battle zone to the healing camp. Take a note of the grid system - downed heroes will be announced on your armbands as well as their location on the grid." The hologram displayed the grid, which showed a relatively simple letter-number grid system.

"All other heroes can provide support in many ways that are suited to your strengths - search-and-rescue, logistics, supplies, communication, defense. Any way you can help is appreciated. Please register with the command post with your abilities and strengths so our Thinkers can coordinate efforts better." That would be the role that Abyssal would take, unless there were so many injured that I had to use up his nanobots for medical procedures instead.

"Please note, the Spanish army and Portuguese navy have mobilized and will be providing support. All capes, especially those operating near Behemoth, take note of the artillery and airstrike warnings. You will only have a five-second window to disengage and move to a safe distance."

Behemoth was the first Endbringer that had showed up nearly thirty years ago. He'd been around long enough that he had been a part of the World Studies curriculum at Winslow. The Simurgh wasn't, but I wasn't sure if high schools were all perpetually out of date, or if they thought she was too scary to teach about to teenagers.

Either way, we had a whole lot of info on Behemoth. And oddly enough, the oldest strategies still worked. Early on, when there weren't as many capes in the world and especially none with Dragon's level of coordination and planning capabilities, he had been fought off with regular military arms and a few capes. Being one of the simplest Endbringers, the simpler strategies worked.

He attacked his targets directly through sheer overwhelming force and toughness. He often walked in fairly straight lines directly to his targets. He didn't have Leviathan's nimbleness and cunning or the Simurgh's deceptiveness. That meant large, heavy, military strikes from tanks, planes, and ships _could_ be used against him, unlike the other Endbringers, although capes were still needed to contain and slow him down enough.

On the other side of the equation, he was simply so deadly that these military-level strikes were _necessary_. Capes alone could eventually deal enough damage to Leviathan or the Simurgh for them to retreat, but Behemoth needed literal tons of military ordinance to finish the job. Many compared fighting Behemoth to be fighting an actual war, and it wasn't just because of the military presence.

Brockton Bay had seen destruction before. Sure, Lung could go on some pretty serious rampages. Sure, the Empire had Kaiser, Purity, and other strong capes. But "strong" on the gang-war level had nothing compared to the _actual_ war level, though Bakuda's bombing run had come close.

"You know, I'm surprised that you people would bother helping the Spaniards. So what shade of white is needed for membership? I was never clear on that," Glory Girl said. I turned to see who she was talking to - ah, the Empire members. Of course.

Othala lifted her chin in a haughty manner as she regarded Glory Girl. "We do what we do for the benefit of all mankind. Surely you noticed that the most brutal and predatory criminals are Lung, Oni Lee, and the Merchants?"

"If you ignore all the crimes that the Empire does, then the Empire doesn't do any crimes! Excellent logic from a Nazi. Your members go around beating up ordinary, innocent citizens," Glory Girl said. I could feel her temper from her aura again. This time, it made me a little scared of her.

"Unlike the others, we don't control who decides to swear allegiance. People _want_ to join the Empire. The Merchants forcibly create addicts; the ABB forces their members to pay tribute. We cannot control it when a criminal who misunderstands our cause shouts platitudes while committing a crime."

I didn't want to get into the discussion, but I was amazed at how Othala could be so hypocritical while keeping a straight face.

"Hey, everyone. Tone it down. We're all on the same side today, remember?" a cape sitting on the other side of us said. "I'm Parademic. I'm a... rogue, I guess, from Miami. But if we aren't all on board today, we're all dead."

I shook his hand. "Yeah. I get that," I said loudly, making sure both Glory Girl and Othala heard. "Nice to meet you. I'm Eunoia."

"Well, we should know how our powers work together. What do you do?"

"Uh, I'm good at micro-surgery I guess. I control nanobots I use to speed healing and do precision, minimally-invasive surgeries to speed up healing. I've been working on brain surgeries mostly at the hospital."

"Nice. I'm sort of a Trump, I can enhance any powers that affect the human body to... spread to others others. Like, if someone can paralyze an arm, I can cause the effect to spread to other people nearby. It works for healing too, though I have no healing powers myself. I'll be shifting between healing and enhancing Brute powers."

"Hm. I think you'll work well with my power, then," Othala said. "I can bestow regeneration, but only on one person at a time."

Tensions may have been high, but at least we weren't at each other's throats for the rest of the flight. I felt myself shift in the straps as the plane slowed down and descended. As much as I wanted the flight to be over, I was also dreading our arrival.

* * *

As Dragon had told us, we didn't have enough time to actually settle in before we began to land. Without windows, I couldn't see what the battlefield looked like. Then again, against Behemoth, I vastly preferred more armour plating on the transport than a good view.

After we landed, I stepped out into what really seemed like the aftermath of a warzone. The ground had been charred and blackened, where it crossed roads the asphalt was melted, all plant life was either dead or burning. Craters pocked the ground randomly; it was hard to tell if it was from capes, Behemoth, or conventional weaponry. The mobile command and medical platforms were even larger than I had expected after seeing their images on screen. They inched ahead, their massive tracks easily and smoothly rolling over the swath of destruction that Behemoth had left behind. Capes were flying or running to and fro.

At the distance we were staying, Behemoth was beyond the horizon. On top of that, the healer's transport was behind a mountain. However, it was still obvious where Behemoth was. He was still visible by the sheer amount of destructive energy he was releasing. The corona of light and electricity was almost like a second sun, shining over the horizon. A few random sparks and flashes must have been the flying Blasters attacking him. A massive plume of smoke rose all the way to the clouds, wide enough to be an entire town on fire.

I was glad I couldn't actually see it with my own eyes right now.

A noise from my wrist revived me from my shock. The armband was talking. _"Trango, deceased. Matadora down, G-6. Dark Gemini down, G-7. Cuchilla Maestra down, G-7. Lasermonger deceased..."_ The stream of casualties seemed endless. It only brought back the reality of what I was faced with. Death. So much death, people helpless to avoid it and those who risked their own to stave it off.

"_All capes disengage, incoming airstrike." _Seconds later, supersonic jet fighters flew by at low altitude, launching a dozen missiles at Behemoth. I watched as Behemoth let out a burst of electricity, frying ten out of the twelve jets that had flown overhead. He didn't even seem to care about the missiles, which struck his body at various points. Even with all the explosions, I couldn't see any appreciable damage. The capes re-engaged. Several seconds later, I heard the sounds of explosions finally reach us.

And then a speedster came in, carrying a badly-burned cape in his arms, and I was forced to focus once again on the immediate problem. No time to gawk. We had a job to do. I followed Panacea; she seemed to be rather experienced with these things.

Our group was being split up again. Search-and-rescue, healing, logistics. Lisa went off in another direction. Abyssal was directed towards another with Glory Girl and Shielder. I kept an extra chunk of nanobots for medical use, while Abyssal dropped off ready-made cloned brains along the way so I could maintain some additional range. I also gave Lisa a coating of nanobots for extra protection, too.

Healing capes were working like mad. A man with a clipboard ushered us to the side so we weren't blocking the entrance.

"We're dividing you by healing type and methodology! Listen up, move fast! Shaker-healers, step up!"

Only one stepped forward. "Sanctum, from Los Angeles," he said. I was hesitant – I could do my thing at range, did I count as a Shaker? I was a little too slow, though.

"How does your power work? Regeneration, reconstruction, reversal of damage, or other?"

"Minor regeneration, and stabilization with mental calming effects," he explained. "Five foot range."

"We'll put you in the discharge area. Make sure everyone's tip-top before going back into the fight," he said, pointing in the direction to go. "Touch-based general healers, step forward!" Othala, Panacea, and a few other capes stepped up.

"Names, limitations, and type of healing."

"Othala. I can bestow a massively improved natural healing speed to a single person at a time. But I can also bestow invulnerability or other effects."

"Panacea. Touch-based bioreconstruction of the body except the brain. I only need biomass, and inorganic materials removed from the body would make things faster."

"Rejector. I can reverse anything short of brain death up to five minutes prior," said the girl with the fancy hairclips.

"Right. Panacea and Rejector, you're heading to critical care," our organizer said, pointing to the section right beside the entrance. "Othala, you're in general treatment for now, but I'll mark you down for the support team if Control demands it. Spot healers and surgeons, step up!"

This was probably the best category for me. I stepped forward along with two others. One guy had four extra robotic limbs on his back, and the other cape wasn't carrying any tools.

"Eunoia. I control nanobots. I mostly do brain surgery, but I can also do some general first aid training. And I can do multiple patients at once."

"Doctor Arachnus. General surgery, just faster and more precise. My arms can take the place of an entire surgical team," said the guy with the robot arms.

"Reflectra," said the girl. "Mirror-healing. I mostly take care of limbs, if their opposite limb is okay I can mirror it to remove the injuries on the other limb. No internal organs."

Our organizing guy nodded. "Arachnus, you're obviously going to general surgery," he said, pointing at a clean-room further to the back. Reflectra, I'm going to put you in the Physio area. If we need you for something major we'll call you. Eunoia, hang around for a second, we'll figure out what's best."

I nodded.

"Pharmaceuticals? Anyone? No? As for the rest of you - Thinkers, Changers, anything else?"

The last of the group introduced themselves.

"Viktor. My power has allowed me to acquire lots of medical knowledge in several specialties, including emergency medicine, neurosurgery, physiotherapy, among others."

"Bulkhead. Brute. Can't heal anyone else but I got Rh-negative, type O blood. And I can regenerate as fast as I can bleed. I can probably provide about three gallons of blood for transfusion per hour, as long as I have some food to eat."

"Parademic. I can cause powers affecting one person to affect others."

"Excellent. Bulkhead, go to the supply team. Viktor, you're with Triage. Parademic, you'll probably work best with Othala. We may need you for the support team as well. Eunoia, we'll have you work in between General Surgery and Critical, to cover for Panacea's blind spot. Go to Critical for now."

I was happy to be put into a familiar role. Over in the critical area, Panacea was already working on some horribly injured capes. Behemoth was absolutely ruthless when it came to his attacks; many of them were suffering burns across the body. "Anything I can help with?" I asked.

"This one's suffering a concussion and some subdural bleeding. If you could fix that, I'll handle the radiation damage to the rest of his body," Panacea told me.

This was far worse than anything we'd had to work together on in Brockton Bay. We barely, if ever, had to work together this hard, except for a few of the victims of Bakuda. Once we finished with this one, there were more still waiting to be treated. I didn't want to think about the capes who died waiting for treatment, but I didn't want to rush my work either.

Victor, although I didn't really understand his power, was in the triage area assessing incoming patients, working alongside medical Thinkers and regular doctors. He was sending a fairly large amount of patients to us, and I didn't know how professional he was being, but I didn't have time to question it. A life was a life.

There was another cape already working there who wasn't strictly a healer, but he seemed to work like Clockblocker did, putting critical patients in some kind of stasis. He was really being taxed, because there seemed to always be more injured coming in than we could heal.

The next few capes didn't have major head injuries so I was shuffled over to the area suited for mass-healing of minor wounds. Some of them had a Shaker healing ability, and they stood in the middle of the room exuding a healing aura. There was a healing singer, who played an uplifting melody that made me feel better too. Surgical tinkers worked furiously, including the guy with multiple robotic arms.

I couldn't instantly heal anyone the way the biokinetics or those who could massively boost regeneration could. In this area, most of the capes seemed to boost natural regeneration, which weren't great at clearing debris and shrapnel. That was what me and the arachno-surgeon guy focused on.

I closed my eyes and let my swarm flow over everyone. Burns were the most common injury. Heat, electrical, and even some radiation burns were present. Some had taken blunt injury, cuts, broken bones. I had to close my eyes and concentrate, using all the spare brains I had to gain all the control I needed. I think I could clear up ten patients at a time this way, and that was still just barely keeping up with the number of capes flooding into the medical base.

_"Moción Mujer down, B-23. Texas Wrecks down, J-19. Americano deceased. El Espirito deceased. Zorra down, Y-3. Cease offensive. Naval artillery strike in 5... 4... 3..."_

Even as far as we were from shore, I could hear all their guns firing in unison. The announcements continued until they nearly became background noise, more capes were being brought in. Every wave of attacks resulted in a wave of injuries. Movers were getting tired carrying people back and forth. I saw Glory Girl drop two capes off before flying off again a second later.

Panacea could only heal so quickly, same with Othala, who was being paired with Parademic. All the capes with powers that could legitimately bring people back to fighting form in a timely fashion were limited in some way or another; few of them could keep up with the influx. The Thinkers at the entrance weren't just prioritizing capes by injury; they also bumped high-level Movers and Blasters to higher priority.

Those people quickly got moved to Panacea and other one-on-one healers in her area. The capes healed quickly but they appeared incredibly weary as they got up from the bed only to rejoin the fray.

On my side, the numbers were building up higher and higher. Most of the patients were suffering from burns of various kinds, either heat, electrical, or radiation. For those I couldn't do much other than remove bacteria and clear debris or charred flesh from the wound. Broken bones were pretty common; those I could help set, as well as sealing internal bleeds.

Many were suffering numbness from electrocution; their nerves were often fried completely. I wondered if I could help them. In a similar way that my bots were used to make artificial brains, I could probably patch them up with artificial nerve cells. Then again, this wasn't the time to be experimenting with new techniques. I left that up to Panacea for now, but maybe I would mention it to Dr. Akagi when I got home.

Even though several other area-healers were stacking on their healing capabilities along with my own, our abilities were being taxed to the limit. When I arrived there were close to thirty injured; that number kept creeping up slowly. Despite the mass healing ability, it took well over an hour to fix critical wounds compared to the seconds for Panacea or minutes for Othala.

I think we were close to forty patients at a time now, even with Panacea and Rejector being good enough to fully heal capes within a minute each. I had to limit myself to the most critical twenty; I think that was my limit. I didn't want to do any more in case I made a critical mistake. The other patients that were on the latter half of the healing process generally didn't need my support any more anyway.

_"Mexicombat down, T-32. Passaro Azul down, T-33. Galloping Ghost down, S-21. Sandy Eggo deceased. Lost Angel deceased. __L'Alpine down, T-30. All combatants clear the area. Artillery strike incoming."_

Every once in a while, Glory Girl would appear, carrying another cape. Panacea would brighten up a little bit seeing her sister, but they never had time to chat.

One thing that gave me some hope was seeing how everyone worked together. I couldn't tell who was hero or villain if I hadn't known beforehand. Not really, anyway. Some had scary costumes, but so did Abyssal. Othala was the only confirmed villain I knew, and she could have been a hero in this setting. Some people could have been gang or mafia members with full-body tattoos, but that didn't really mean anything. Everyone was just working hard to survive. Everyone was on the same side, for once.

"_Redsphere deceased. Maximus Rex down, O-24. Sol-Soldado down, E-2. Flareburst deceased..." _The announcements continued without end.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

One thing I found weird was how little the world militaries participated against the Endbringers. Sure, they failed the first few times originally, but then again, it's not like the world has been doing much better. People are constantly failing against the Endbringers, nearly every time.

Capes may have physics-breaking powers, but not that often. Flechette seems like one in a million. Most typical Blasters are only at "minigun" levels of damage or less, which is easy for military to match. Even the power/damage output a high-rated Blaster like Purity can be matched or beaten by standard artillery shells. They just need good coordination, which Dragon could provide.

Leviathan may be tricky and difficult to hit with standard military arms, Simurgh is always bullshit, but Behemoth still seems like a legitimate target to me.


	29. Extraction 5

Extraction 5

Abyssal had a fairly limited range from the medical base to do his searching and rescuing. Despite the number of extra brains I had brought along, it wasn't enough to stretch all the way from the medical base to the actual fight ten kilometers away. There was no way I'd be able to build enough extra brains to reach that area in time, either.

However, I was determined not to let Abyssal be useless. I was already feeling somewhat inadequate in the medical realm, compared to the truly healing-specialized powers, some amateur surgery felt almost pointless in comparison. Outside, I was watching Movers fly or run past my bots, quickly outpacing the speed and range of Abyssal as they went back and forth, shuttling the injured.

Given the fact that we had arrived fairly late into the attack, there was already a long trail of destruction to search through. I wasn't going to let him be useless. I could find a way to contribute. Most Movers had been able to scoop up the easily-spotted casualties on the surface, but very few were talented at wide-area searching or digging.

I made him dissolve and disperse. They swept through the area like a flowing carpet. There was plenty of collapsed ground and destroyed buildings within range. Places where most capes couldn't go or couldn't see. My bots worked their way underground, looking for anyone caught under a building or avalanche.

Being so small, my bots had no trouble finding some of the subtle vibrations of a heartbeat, even in between the powerful tremors of the main battle. I did come across quite a few bodies – already cooling with no heartbeat. I didn't waste time with those. However, it wasn't long before I found someone. I had all my bots converge on to the location.

His armband wasn't active. It took a few more bots surrounding his body before I figured out why. His arm had been crushed when the concrete ceiling had collapsed. In some unfortunate irony, the very reason he was trapped was the reason he survived – although the slab of concrete was pinning his arm down, it had also created a pocket that stopped the other rubble from crushing him completely. The armband had been destroyed, which was probably why he hadn't been rescued. I guess they assumed he was dead instead of just down. Or maybe it hadn't been able to send out its "down" signal for others to find him.

I couldn't even move him, because his arm was trapped. My bots entered his body to check his vitals more precisely. What I found wasn't good. His blood pressure was low, blood oxygen didn't seem good, his breathing was shallow and weak, as was his heartbeat. I was able to stem the bleeding, but he would need proper treatment, fast.

I wanted to cut out the concrete from around his arm that was locking him in, but... if I damaged the slab crushing his arm, I would risk having everything above come down on him. On top of that, I didn't know if I could slice through concrete that quickly. He needed treatment immediately; and if I factored in the time to pull him out and carry him to the medical base.

Adding up a few quick estimates, I decided there wasn't enough time. Cutting through his arm was faster. Most of my bots would have to be dedicated to clearing a path.

I sliced through the flesh and bone easily with my nanobots, preserving as much of the limb as I could. The rest of them sealed it off quickly to prevent any bleeding or infection. With all the other bots clearing a path to the surface, I managed to haul him out in under a minute.

Still, he wasn't in the clear just yet. My bots went to work immediately even as Abyssal formed in full to carry him back to the medical base. I focused first on cleaning the wounds and preventing further blood loss; it looked like he was barely breathing now. I formed a makeshift ventilator with my bots to help force a little extra air into his lungs.

By the time Abyssal managed to bring him up the ramp to the mobile base, I had done what I could for him. I officially took over as Eunoia to help right away, mainly to explain the fact that he had all the bots inside him. Actual healing powers would be needed to take him the rest of the way, though. I just made sure he was staying alive before being passed on to Panacea or Othala or one of those other healers. Abyssal left immediately after dropping him off.

As Abyssal returned out to the field, I watched again as more capes rushed past Abyssal, either off to the fight, or to search for more survivors. I even noticed Laserdream and Lady Photon fly overhead, blasting their lasers alongside Legend himself. My breath hitched as a massive, forking stream of lightning shot through a crowd of capes, and dozens fell from the skies.

They were outside my range; Abyssal couldn't pick them up.

I reminded myself... I didn't have to save everybody. I just had to save those I could. In the meantime, my bots in the field had found another living person underground. She'd suffered massive burns and probably what should have been massive blood loss. She was nearly naked as well; whatever she had been wearing was burned off or fused to her skin. Once again, there was no armband nearby or on her. I didn't know if the armband had been incinerated in whatever attack downed her, or if she was a new trigger because of Behemoth. Either way, she must have had Brute powers; they were saving her life at the moment. I would have to take it the rest of the way.

One life at a time. I didn't want anyone to be overlooked just because of broken or damaged armbands. I couldn't imagine someone else going through the torment of being trapped, alone, in the dark, with nobody coming to rescue.

* * *

"_All capes, all capes, retreat from sectors SB-3 through 9. Repeat, all capes retreat from sectors SB3 through 9."_

I heard and felt the warning at the same time. Dragon's infallibly calm voice echoed the alarm from everyone's armband at once, while the Abyssal-bots, who were still sifting through the rubble to find more trapped survivors, detected the shaking. It was like he was hammering down on the land itself, instead of fighting the capes.

The flying capes continued to hammer away at Behemoth, trying to stop the monster from completely wrecking the entire coast. However, it was basically ignoring them and focusing on turning rock into dust.

Most of the land-based capes took the warning more seriously. They immediately scattered, but they didn't know which direction was safest. The artificial earthquake made nearly every place at risk of more collapsing buildings or avalanches from the nearby mountain.

Morale was certainly dropping by the minute. We were running lower and lower on surviving capes, much less the ones who were still willing to fight. Sure, the Triumvirate were still fighting hard as they always did, but they alone weren't enough. Even the military had taken huge losses, with the waves taking out at least one ship and the waves were now too rough to rescue any of the sailors. Multiple planes had been shot down, and their pilots never had time to eject. Even with all the attacks, nobody could notice any particularly notable damage to Behemoth's body aside from a few flakes of his skin.

Suddenly, there was a flash of golden light. It shone brightly across the sky, so much that I could even see it out the doorway of the healing building. A bright, shining cape had arrived. Scion.

People began cheering as if the fight was already over.

Scion shot a bright, golden beam down at Behemoth. Behemoth immediately abandoned the fight and began to burrow deeper underground. Scion blasted him again into the ground, where Behemoth went even deeper. The battle between the two caused the shaking to intensify even further. The new tremors felt like they increased by an order of magnitude. It went from an earthquake to a bouncy castle.

Large chunks of my bots and several brains disappeared out from under my control. The land was shifting, turning almost liquid-like. Even as my bots attempted to crawl their way to the surface, things were moving so quickly I couldn't retrieve them. A large majority of the bots I had in the ground searching for survivors were swept away in a landslide.

Behemoth was definitely in full retreat, but he was still causing plenty of harm by digging through the ground. Chunks of his body flew through the air as he was struck over and over by Scion, who continued the attack even as the monster's body had disappeared from view. At this point Scion seemed to be doing more damage to the continent than to Behemoth. Probably. Even if we wanted him to stop, nobody could actually stop him from what he wanted to do.

A deep rumbling sound began to grow louder and louder, cutting through the chaos of the battlefield. Where before, the land near the city and coast was shifting, now _everything_ was moving at once. I almost didn't realize it because everything in my field of view was moving together, except some of my bots were moving at different speeds than others.

There was a long, unending crashing sound as waves as the moving earth hit the water. When the waves crashed against Scion's beams, it was instantly vaporized into superheated steam.

"_Deluge down, SB4. Tournura down, SB4. Neddy down, SB5. Naufrago down, SB3. Tecnoligera down, SB3..."_ The names began to ring off almost endlessly. I knew the casualty list was even longer than that; I had disabled the deceased announcements because I couldn't save the dead. From what I could tell, most of the injuries were from the flying capes who weren't expecting massive steam burns. Far too many had stayed in the area to watch it as if it were a victory lap.

Nobody ever really understood Scion. He was a hero, that was for certain, but he also didn't quite understand how his actions were hurting the other capes. Some people thought he was autistic or something. He never talked, and he wasn't very predictable. He had a thing for rescuing cats trapped in trees and other pointless heroics. Or, more like, he had no concept of priority. Stopping and Endbringer was just as important to him as stopping a mugging. He never showed up at the beginning of an Endbringer fight, but once he finally did, it was over.

Without a doubt he was the most powerful cape in the world, but he also seemed... kind of dim-witted. It was almost as if parahuman powers were some kind cosmic irony, a balancing act that always stopped things from ever becoming too good. At least it was better than him turning psychopath like the Slaughterhouse Nine or the Blasphemies.

Not that I was looking a gift horse in the mouth. The fight was over, won by the golden man. The first cape, the most mysterious cape. He disappeared just as quickly as he had arrived. Never stayed for autographs.

Nobody ever "won" against an Endbringer, except for Scion. But we had survived.

* * *

_"Medical and control teams, evacuate to the north! Medical and control teams, evac, north, now!"_

Funny, that voice was familiar. Not Dragon's unerringly calm announcement, but Lisa's.

The announcement caught everyone off-guard. Most people thought the fight was done. No more Behemoth to worry about, Scion had taken care of him. No more collateral damage from Scion, either. The Golden Cape was gone. The healers in the base had just started to relax into a steady pace, with fewer and fewer announcements coming over the armbands.

The shaking and landslides hadn't affected the medical bases too much. The generous distance had kept us safe. If it weren't for the fact that I could see outside with my bots, I would have forgotten that we were working in a mobile platform. It was steady as a building. But when that announcement came, all that devolved into panic, especially when the floor suddenly tilted.

The massive machine the medical base was mounted on wasn't made for speed. Stability and all-terrain movement was its strength. However, when the terrain suddenly went from horizontal to vertical, it proved to be beyond the scope of its intended design.

The ground started dropping out from under us. I could see from the outside, the massive canyon that was opening up underneath the vehicle. It seemed like Behemoth hadn't burrowed straight down into the Earth's mantle in his retreat, but he had taken a route underneath the medical base. The land underneath us was now crumbling and shifting.

Inside, I knew there was nothing else I could do, except for those I already had bots on. Including Panacea and Tattletale; thank goodness the command vehicle was close to the medical base. I had all my bots harden into plates to armour their most critical areas. My own costume wrapped me tighter and fully covered myself as the entire vehicle listed like a sinking ship.

Beds, patients, supplies, and all of us capes started to slide. I dodged out of the way as they started to crash into the wall. Other capes, like Doctor Arachnus, used whatever they had to clamber out of the way. I managed to use my bots in my costume to provide me with glue-like grip.

Others weren't so lucky. Scalpels, needles, and other sharp objects went flying. My costume blocked most of it, and I focused on protecting Panacea with my bots. In the other vehicle, Tattletale was a little luckier, but computers and desks were still heavy and had sharp corners. I had to harden her armour as well. Other people weren't so lucky.

I had zero confidence in the massive machine's ability to handle being upside down. It was heavy enough to support a makeshift building sitting on it. The reverse probably wasn't true.

With the bots I had used to protect Panacea and Tattletale, I helped them to the nearest exit, using their armor as an exoskeleton instead. Tattletale figured things out quickly. Panacea was confused by the assisted strength, but things were happening too quickly for me to try to communicate to her. I just ended up pulling her towards the door.

As we climbed out, the bases were almost tilted vertically. Tattletale was already hopping off the command vehicle. Meanwhile, other capes were either falling off and into the newly-formed canyon, or scrambling along the soft dirt towards safety.

"This way! This way!" Tattletale yelled when she saw us.

We started to move towards each other. I dragged Panacea along as well, because I didn't think she heard Tattletale. Another cape who was evacuating bumped into us – more into Panacea than me. I didn't even have time to take note of who it was, because multiple others were desperately trying to get to safety.

She tripped on an external ladder, sliding off the side of the vehicle and falling into the massive track mechanisms. For a second, I watched in horror as I feared she would be crushed under the power of the massive gears and drive mechanisms. I only breathed some slight relief as she struck a panel on the side, but she bounced off and stopped struggling.

I had protected her with my armour, but one thing my bot-armour wasn't good at was providing cushioning. Crap. She tumbled to the ground, and I couldn't get to her in time.

Tattletale had been watching. "I got her!" she shouted. I made sure to use my bots to help amplify her strength, because I was pretty sure she would have trouble lifting Panacea on a good day, much less catch her as she fell from twenty feet up.

What resulted was not the most graceful rescue I'd seen. Tattletale managed to get underneath Panacea just in time, stopping her from hitting the rocks on the ground directly. But Tattletale herself wasn't able to position herself very well. She essentially ended up falling awkwardly with Panacea on top of her, and she slammed into the ground, hard. I did my best to provide a little extra cushioning with the bots this time, but there was no way to turn a teenager slamming into you at around thirty miles an hour into a comfortable experience.

I found a way to get down safely but quickly – jumping, with more of my bots shifted to my legs. I rushed over to the two of them, where Lisa was waving her hand, trying to push Panacea off her but without any strength to her movements. I had no time to assess them properly. I grabbed both of them as a unit and dragged them towards more solid ground, but my feet were slipping as the newly-formed canyon continued to widen.

"Ames? Taylor? Where are you?"

I heard Glory Girl shout overhead.

"Over here!" I yelled as loud as I could.

Before I knew it, all three of us were being lifted into the air. I watched as the massive vehicles eventually tumbled and flipped over, coming to rest deep down a chasm.

"Oh my god, oh my god, you're alright. How is Amy doing?" Glory Girl asked as she set us down.

"Put her down, I'll check," I said. "I think they both hit their heads, so they might be suffering minor concussions." The bots didn't have far to go, so I had a few extra enter to check on them.

"Definitely a concussion," Tattletale said groggily.

"Hush, you. Let the experts do their job," I said. It only took a few seconds, but yes, they were both suffering from minor concussions. Panacea had it slightly worse, with some bleeding to her scalp but no skull fracture. Lisa had more musculoskeletal injuries, mostly to her back and shoulders.

"They should be fine," I said. "Lisa cushioned Panacea enough when she fell, she should be waking up any second now." Still, I left my bots in there to help speed up their recovery and make sure nothing got worse.

Meanwhile, there were still plenty of other people to save.

"GG, I think we'll be good here for now. We need to find as many survivors as we can," I told her. Lucky for me, Abyssal had managed to retreat back into range. Even though I had lost about a third of the brains I had brought along, the ones that had fallen into the canyon were still within range, and I still had control over enough of them to mount a rescue effort.

* * *

The bots I had remaining inside the mobile bases began looking for anyone who hadn't been crushed. Other Movers were already joining in, though there was far less coordination now. Some were digging people out of the the landslide. Some were headed for the vehicles, others were lifting victims up but didn't know where to put them.

Abyssal formed inside the now-darkened interiors. There was some emergency lighting, but it didn't cover all the areas. Not to mention the utterly crushed sections of the vehicle. I located my earlier patients easily, since many of them still had bots inside them. Unfortunately, it also told me who was already dead. Abyssal hauled out those who could still be saved.

"Help!"

Oh, good, conscious people. They were stuck in a dark corner behind a collapsed wall. I sent bots in there to investigate first, and found some familiar faces.

Othala and Viktor.

It seemed like Viktor had been granted invulnerability, and then he used his body to protect Othala. He had taken a steel girder to the back, but it had been utterly stopped by the invincibility power. Unfortunately, it seemed like they were stuck. Othala didn't have room to move, and if she stopped granting the invincibility to Viktor, they would both be dead.

I sighed. It wasn't so long ago that I had been fighting them in the streets to get them arrested. Then again... Endbringer Truce. My bots began to cut away the twisted metal that was keeping them trapped. Abyssal's main body went off to ferry some other people who were in worse shape, and he would be able to pull them out by the time he got back.

Panacea was waking up, too. "Ugh. Fuck. What happened?"

"You fell down," I told her, pointing at the chasm in front of us.

"Right," she said. "I suppose both of you need a bit of healing?"

"No, but others might. You've got a concussion. Best if you don't move. I hope you don't mind if I keep some bots in your brain for the next while," I told her.

"Right. Whatever. Probably for the best," she said, laying back down and closing her eyes. Again, I could tell she wasn't close to feeling a hundred percent, but I knew there would be a lot more healing to come. And, because Panacea and I were both sitting here (with Abyssal bringing more to our spot), we were already becoming a makeshift healing area. We wouldn't be getting much rest.

* * *

With no more shaking at all, I think everybody finally managed to breathe a sigh of relief. No more unexpected quakes or landslides. Scion was already gone, probably to feed a puppy or something. As far as we knew, the Endbringers never popped up for a round two. Especially not after Scion.

The entire landscape had changed. When we started, we were tucked safely away from the fight behind a mountain. Now, I could see clearly all the way to the ocean. The entire city of Gibraltar was a completely lost cause. What used to be the Strait of Gibraltar was now filled in with dirt, as well as fresh lava gushing up in the middle. Huge plumes of steam and ash rose from the waters. It seemed like Behemoth had dug a fresh new volcano down to the fault line. Though the avalanche had stopped, the barrier of land was still growing due to the lava. I don't think anyone had the power to stop that.

But large-scale redrawing of the world map wasn't my problem. Finding victims to save was. There were so many we left behind. So many we hadn't healed. So many we couldn't evacuate. Not to mention half of my own clone brains. I lost my connection with them, even as watched other capes fall or get buried to their deaths.

I knew I would never be able to retrieve those people or those bots. The full rescue process would take days, and if we were lucky, we would be able to find more survivors. Some of my bots I could rebuild to speed up and expand the area of the search, but I didn't think I could do that much in time. Two or three days, injured, without food or water were not good chances.

* * *

The aftermath cleanup was something that would never be truly complete. Behemoth had utterly wrecked the south coast of Spain. Gibraltar had basically ceased to exist, with a newly formed volcano taking its place. The Mediterranean Sea was no longer connected to the Atlantic Ocean. I had no idea what the long-term effects of that were.

The death toll was actually lower than average, but that was only due to his choice of target. If he'd chosen some place like Barcelona, the numbers would have been far worse. The cape deaths, however, were just as high as any Behemoth attack.

Some of the capes, especially the healers and Brutes, decided to stick around for a little while longer to help rescue people and clear out the shattered lands. Many of them had lost comrades, friends, family. Hell, I even overheard some people mourning the loss of some villain rivals.

I couldn't quite empathize with them – and a part of me truly didn't want to. Luckily, all of New Wave had survived the fight. Only Laserdream and Lady Photon had been on the offensive, and they were longer-ranged than most Blasters. They had been quite cautious. The only real loss I suffered were many of my cloned brains. While it had been uncomfortable and jarring, it never felt like as _complete_ or _final_ as a real death. A part of them always lived on in me, after all. And not in the way that people usually meant it metaphorically.

The remainder of the recovery effort was mostly t he same for us healers. We had been directed to focus on saving capes before, but now that Behemoth was gone, our patient list grew a thousandfold with the civilian and military population needing medical help. At least. But there were normal doctors flooding in, actual international relief efforts coming in. We had more supplies now, more equipment, more manpower.

Me, I needed to make more bots. The more I had, the more I could do, the faster I could work. I was no longer working on the timescale of hours; we had a few days or possibly a week to help with relief. Unfortunately, there wasn't much useful material for me. Behemoth had basically burned through nearly everything, rendering it all useless. I was able to salvage a few components from the slagged machinery, and many of the collapsed homes that miraculously _hadn't_ burnt to a crisp. I also combed through the ground to search for bots that I lost earlier, hoping to reclaim as many as I could.

As I did, found something strange, though. A material I had never seen before, that even my diamond-tooled bots couldn't cut. The material was leagues beyond diamond in hardness.

It didn't take long for me to realize it was part of the Endbringer's body. That stuff withstood tank shells, bombs, superpowered energy blasts and tinker-tech weapons. When Scion had arrived, he was the only one who did any real damage, blowing chunks of the Endbringer's body away. Those pieces had been quickly claimed by the various government and military agencies. However, most of the pieces I found were from earlier in the fight.

I began to gather as much of it as I could. It might not help today, but I knew I could put a superdense material that nearly broke physics to good use _somehow_. The more I collected, the more I realized how much more I needed to know. Their density and strength varied wildly, with some being scratched and cut easily while others were hard enough to obliterate diamond. They all _felt_ identical to my bots while being completely different. Strange.

For now, I doubted I would be able to figure out how to break it down to its molecular components soon, whatever it was. At the very least, though, I could probably just layer the stuff over my body as armour or something. It was strong, if nothing else. And there was _so much_ of the stuff lying around, pieces too small for most agencies to bother collecting.

* * *

Amy and I agreed to hang out until the end of the week, which was how long they estimated it would take for longer-term relief efforts to be established. Beyond that, it was unlikely we would find anyone who had been trapped or lost that was still alive. I knew we couldn't save everyone, but Amy certainly seemed to be trying. She was overworking herself; often times forgetting to eat. I had to pull her away from a patient more than once.

"Panacea? Amy? You have to take care of yourself. You're still recovering from a concussion," I reminded her as I brought a sandwich. My bots were still floating in her head, and I could see that it was only recovering at a normal speed. Most people in her condition would still be getting bed rest. Shame her healing powers didn't work on herself.

"I know, but..." her voice fell away. She didn't seem to have much of an appetite.

"You've done more than anyone else here. You some rest," I insisted. She didn't seem proud of her achievement, even though there was no question she had saved literally thousands of lives personally. It was more than most people on the planet could claim, and she'd done it in two days. But even then, she seemed reluctant to go, that she hadn't been good enough.

"How about you? I haven't seen you sleep either," Panacea countered.

"I don't really sleep any more. I've found a way to use my power that mostly bypasses it," I told her. Mostly, I just took naps while I was working, letting my other brains handle the actual procedures. My other bots couldn't control _me_ the way I controlled them – but most of my work didn't actually need my hands and fingers. So I took naps whenever.

"You're not the only healer here, and you don't have to be," Tattletale said, joining us at lunch. Her job was mostly finished. She'd offered to help coordinate the search efforts to maximize rescues and likely survivors. So far her work had been pretty successful; Glory Girl managed to find a significant number of survivors thanks to her guidance.

"I know," Panacea said. "I just... it's complicated. Just a little more." She ate just a few bites of her sandwich and returned to the never-ending lineup of patients.

I watched her walk away. Tattletale shifted close to me and whispered, "She's got... issues."

"She's putting too much pressure on herself," I agreed.

"No... it's more than that," Tattletale said. "I know, it's kind of a breach of privacy, but my powers are telling me things about her. She, uh... Hm. She's got love life issues. Fuck, I've already said too much. Forget I said that. Stupid power! I only wanted to find out what she liked so I could get on her good side. My power gave me the worst case of TMI."

I decided that was probably better not to ask.

"And what the hell are you planning to do with Amy?" I would have suspected that she would have done something like this for her former boss, but... they'd already broken ties, hadn't they?

"What? It's in my best interest to be friends with the world's greatest healer. No offense, Eunoia, but she's still better than you are. And I want to stay alive."

"You know she'd probably heal you even if you weren't friends. She heals just about everyone. I'd almost say too many," I said as I watched Panacea continue moving from patient to patient.

"She won't heal me if she has a total mental breakdown. Just look at her. Tell me you aren't seeing huge signs of stress in her head. She's practically on the verge of going nuts. I'm no therapist, but if Panacea goes down, it's bad for everyone. Li'l 'ol me not excepted."

I sighed. Yes, that _was_ something I had noticed after having my bots study Amy's brain more. I had left my bots in there primarily to monitor her recovery. I had noticed a lot of stress markers, but I had assumed that was because of, well, Behemoth nearly killing her. Chronic stress, though? It was hard to measure without having a baseline to compare against, monitoring the change over time. I didn't remember exactly what Amy's brain looked like months ago, during the brain resarch experiment. Damn. I would need to keep track of her more closely if what Lisa said was true.

"I'll try to keep an eye on her," I said.

"I'm going to chat with her," Lisa said, taking off her mask.

"Tatt- Lisa, whatever you're thinking..." I hissed at her while grabbing her wrist.

"Look, I know my _job _is basically scheming, but sometimes plans can actually benefit everyone.," Lisa said. "I'm not going to hurt her. The girl's got problems. If I can help her with those even a little bit, I get a powerful friend, we both benefit. What's wrong with that? Now if you let her problems fester... well, she goes from being the world's greatest healer to the next _Bonesaw_."

I flinched when she mentioned that. She didn't seriously think Panacea could become as bad as Bonesaw, did she? She was so good at... I froze in my own thoughts. She could heal cancer like it was nothing. She could also _create_ cancer like it was nothing. My bots could see what she did; she created cells basically from scratch. She could, but didn't, always heal perfectly on purpose - I could see it on the microscopic level. Old people stayed old, though Amy could have replaced all their cells in their body and made them fifty years younger. If she really was doing that badly, and something pushed her over the edge... Lisa was right. That _was_ scary.

While I was busy contemplating that nightmare, and Lisa was already chatting with Panacea. A short, snappy one; I doubt they shared more than ten words with each other. Still, Lisa walked back towards me with a grin of success. "Turns out we share favourite drinks. Caramel Machiatto. I'm going to see if I can mix something up for her."

"Really. What an amazing coincidence," I said dryly. "Where are you going to find an espresso machine around here?"

Lisa just gave me her know-it-all smirk. "Supply shipment just came in. Plenty of coffee-addicted Tinkers still around. I'm sure I can wrangle something that's close enough."

I stopped her. "Lisa, I don't want you manipulating her like this. If you _actually_ have anything in common with her, I'm not going to stop you from making conversation. But don't lie to her or manipulate her into being your friend, got it? I'll tell her exactly what you're doing to her if you do."

"Fine. You're right. She'd never trust me otherwise," Lisa said as she skipped over to the rations tent.

I kept extra bots on and around both of them to make sure I could hear what was going on as I worked.

When Lisa returned to Amy, I heard her say, "_Got you your favourite drink! Not the best caramel around here, so I had to improvise. And sorry, I kinda lied. This isn't my favourite. I prefer something that hits quicker, like a double espresso with plenty of sugar. I just __thought you needed a pick-me-up."_

Well, it was a start.

Glory Girl flew back in with another victim. She flew over to the pair. "Ames! How you holding up?" she asked, giving her sister a hug. "And Tats, where's my next rescue?"

Glory Girl was basking in the pride of being one of the most prolific rescuers in the field. It was a bit of a contest she was having against her cousin Laserdream. That was because of Lisa was working with the other Thinkers, and Dragon, to map everything out. People's last known locations, the city's population density, evacuation reports, the distance and direction the land had shifted... all sorts of data was being modelled by the Tinker's computers to produce a predictive map. Lisa took all that and added her own power to it, resulting in some very good predictions.

Lisa directed Glory Girl to the areas that would take advantage of her super-strength and flight, where others wouldn't be as successful, while the options Lisa gave to Laserdream were more limited. Even if they flew to the same spot, Glory Girl was simply faster. That little competitive edge that Lisa gave her made her go back to her for tips often.

It surprised me how quickly they were willing to work together, but after I told Glory Girl what had happened, she seemed to be quite forgiving of the former villain. After all, it had been Tattletale's warning that saved our lives, and even her awkward catch after Panacea fell had been worth a laugh.

Huh. I noted that Panacea was looking a little better; at least before Glory Girl flew off. Lisa _must_ have noticed it if I did. Maybe she would be trying to arrange more quality time between the two sisters.


	30. Interlude 6: Piggot

Interlude 6: Piggot

"Do you know why I'm here, Emily?"

Director Piggot didn't see the Regional Director often. While Brockton Bay had a higher cape count and crime rate per-capita than average, it was still a small city compared to New York, Washington, Boston, or the other cities that dotted the east coast. That meant she often got less resources, as well as less oversight. So when Armstrong bothered to come down here, it was usually a big deal.

"If I were to hazard a guess, it's the lawsuit?" she said. What else could it have been? It sure as hell was never anything good. He had never granted any of her requests for additional funding.

"Well, it's certainly a factor. This is a performance review."

Piggot was no stranger to those words. Basically Human Resources code for "we're looking for a reason to fire you." She didn't like that style of doublespeak; she preferred to get straight to the point.

"Anything in particular, then?"

"The lawsuit is the biggest issue at the moment, but the Kill Order on Bakuda is another. As it looks right now, we can minimize the damage but we won't be getting out unscathed. Our lawyers can offload more of the blame on to the school board, but this isn't about the money. The public is shaming us already. The news and tabloids love dragging heroes down, and that can't be fixed with cash."

"No chance of us winning outright?" Piggot asked, trying to hide her bitterness. If money wasn't the issue, then they could have at least approved her budget requests for once, and things wouldn't have devolved so badly.

"Our advisors say if that if we appeal, it might still open up the possibility of lawsuits from Shadow Stalker's previous victims, too. We need to demonstrate we're being proactive if we're to win in the court of public opinion. We've got the Youth Guard breathing down our backs and ready to ram through a ton of extra legislation to restrict our Wards program even more, based on the aftermath of this case."

Piggot scowled. Of course. The public was flighty, whimsical, fickle, and easily swayed. Half the time they cared more about what shampoo Alexandria used than which gang just imported two hundred kilos of heroin into the city. And the Youth Guard? Those bored stay-at-home parents who kept parading nice-sounding catchphrases like "but think of the children!" while doing exactly none of it themselves. They demanded the PRT cut Wards' time on base, citing education and safety, but reducing crime was the safest thing in the long-term. Then Legend is seen having lunch with another man and a gay hero's sex life completely takes over the news again. The people judged, took opinions as facts, ignored evidence if it came two hours after the headlines.

And in this situation, she knew the public would either need a massive distraction, or they would want heads to roll. Nobody actually paid attention to the court proceedings, too impatient to wait the months that were needed for a proper trial to run its course. They read the headlines, then made their judgement. A few random people on the internet had spoken their opinion already. It looked like the PRT was going for the second solution.

And her head was on the chopping block.

"I can figure out what's coming already," Piggot said bitterly. "I just want to know. Since when did PR and image matter more than public safety? I took this job because lives needed to be saved."

Armstrong sat down and sighed. "I'm not your enemy, Emily. I know how hard you've worked. Hell, I still remember... the operation, even if I'm not allowed to talk about it. There are very few people in the PRT who have given as much as you have. But you need to understand, in the long run, image is a matter of public safety."

Advertising and public relations wasn't her strong suit, but that wasn't really her role as the director. Glenn Chambers managed most of the PR on the national level, from approving the gift shop items, to designing certain Wards' costumes and names, to their meet-and-greet events, and even had the authority to limit power usage if things weren't image-friendly. Every PRT department had someone like him. They had to make the PRT as friendly and approachable as possible, because every new cape that didn't join the PRT was potentially one ready to join a villain group.

Piggot hated that the PRT prioritized things that way. Too much power devoted to capes. Too many missions would depend entirely on a single person. Too many keystones, too easy for missions to be cancelled for something as simple as a single case of food poisoning on a single member. Capes were unreliable; a dozen well-trained normal soldiers may have been considered weaker but she thought they were far more reliable. One called in sick, another could take their place. She knew this firsthand; three capes had chickened out during a Nilbog mission and left forty of her men to die. She was the only one of two survivors. If the mission had been planned without depending on capes at all, the wouldn't have faced disaster.

"Isn't that what Glenn was for?" Piggot asked dryly. Capes in the PRT had entire teams of PR, media, and stylists dedicated to them, each city had more people for capes than the PRT had nationally. She felt like it was another drag on resources that capes sucked away from regular members.

"Not for something like this. This lawsuit has merit. There have been some serious missteps somewhere along the line, and we may be looking at major policy change. Especially the underage probation program. Things will be made public in the course of the lawsuit; we have to be proactive about it to minimize losses. Can't just lay it on the PR guy alone for this problem."

"Do I get to know who's replacing me, at least?"

"We're thinking of pulling in Tagg, unless you have your own recommendation for us. Final decision will need to be made within two weeks. We expect the handover within a month. We may keep you on as an advisory role at best, as an external contractor. Sorry, Emily. Nothing personal, but the public won't be satisfied unless a few heads roll."

* * *

Emily Piggot never liked her job. It caused her to stress every moment of every day, even at home. It put her at odds with people she disliked in order to fight the people she hated. And every step of the way, people came crawling out of the woodwork to tell her she was doing it wrong. It was, without exaggeration, one of the worst jobs in the world.

She did it out of necessity. Not some basic, desperate necessity like money to pay the bills. She had enough for a modest retirement – such was the benefits of hazard pay and a good medical insurance plan. No, she did her job because the city of Brockton Bay needed her. Quite frankly, if she had managed to find someone who could do as good a job with the city as she did, then she would have given up the spot.

People were quick to complain. Criticism was cheap, and it came from all sides. None of them truly understood how close the city was on the brink of total anarchy. The PRT ENE branch was one of the most understaffed and poorly funded branches among all of the PRT. People complained that not enough was being done about crime? Piggot would like to see any of them try to manage as much as she did on the budget she had. Often they were compared to cities like Buffalo or Reno, cities that were slightly bigger than Brockton Bay but with lower crime rates. They never accounted for the fact that Buffalo shared PRT resources with New York, one of the premier PRT branches. Of course they had lower crime rates when Legend himself included the city in his patrols. As for Reno, Piggot would laugh. The entire city was practically run by criminals. Less overt crime, sure, but only because the mafias had taken over the city so fully that people probably mistook the Don for the mayor.

Piggot could at least take credit for maintaining the status quo, which was a lot harder than it sounded. Two major gangs nearly taking over her city, both of which had more firepower than their own Protectorate and PRT, yet neither one actually had. Most people considered it stagnation, but they didn't realize how much of a constant uphill battle it was to merely stay in the same place.

Of course, to actually achieve that, she had to put her Wards on more aggressive patrol schedules. That led to more complaints by the Youth Guard. But what was she to do? Nobody would transfer more experienced Protectorate members from another city to Brockton Bay. The Youth Guard could complain all they wanted about how the Wards were in danger – but they didn't consider the danger if the gangs took over. Did they think letting drug dealers operate close to schools and the Wards' own neighbourhoods was better for them? Of course they didn't.

She knew other directors spoke poorly of the ENE branch behind her back, as well. Of all the people who could criticize her, at least the other directors had some experience with the kind of shit she had to deal with. But none of them knew exactly how bad she had it. Whenever she challenged another director to brainstorm solutions for Brockton Bay, the answers were inevitably the same: Do X, Y, or Z, where X would blow the budget, Y required manpower she didn't have, and Z required a specific cape that wasn't approved for transfer.

As for the more dangerous operations, she had often requested a budget increase. At first she thought it was just the Regional Director Armstrong that had something against her, but when she sent a request directly to the Chief Director explaining the situation, she was again turned down. The denials came straight from the top.

Piggot could make a few guesses why. Brockton Bay was a relatively small city north of New York and Boston. The fact that there was a PRT branch here at all was probably considered a waste of budget. After all, there were larger cities in the country that didn't have their own branch. She suspected that the higher-ups were thinking of shutting this branch down and diverting the budget elsewhere.

An insane decision, in her opinion. She'd written plenty of... strongly worded emails and formal memos, only to be ignored. She suspected that the higher-ups hated her as much as she hated them, but she wasn't going to sacrifice everything for that. It made her job impossibly difficult, but she hadn't been one to shy away from impossible challenges. Like Nilbog.

Nor did she consider her superiors her enemy. She wasn't going to blackmail the PRT itself by complaining to the media to get what she wanted. However, the public was far more fickle, and lately news had not been good. Especially that lawsuit from Eunoia.

Shadow Stalker had created such a nightmare for the PRT, and now the public was in on the story. Tabloids were implying plenty of untrue details, which the public greedily accepted. None of them had realized what a hellion Shadow Stalker had been, and the fact that she had been forced upon her. If it had been up to her, that girl would have gone straight to juvie, instead of being a persistent headache. It was where she belonged, but the PRT was so certain their rehabilitation program would work, and that ENE branch was the best place to do it. Piggot knew a lost cause when she saw one. Hess was a loose cannon, only slightly more sane than Nilbog and only safer due to the fact that her power was weaker. The best thing that idiot had achieved in her life was get herself killed, not that Piggot would have ever said that out loud.

Combined with her handling of Bakuda, the recent escape of all significant cape captures, the embarrassing fundraiser, and especially the lawsuit, the media was quick to paint her as an incompetent director. People were calling for her resignation. As if anyone else could have done better.

At least they would allow her to choose the next ENE Director – the next lamb to the slaughter, as it were. She knew very few would actually be able to handle this city. As much as she would have relished the thought of yelling "I told you so!" when her successor inevitably failed, she did, in fact, want the city to thrive and the gangs eliminated. That meant she had the work of figuring out who was the most competent person for the job in a very short time.

* * *

Piggot looked at several file folders laid out in front of her. The options were basically between allowing the PRT to assign an existing director – Tagg – to transfer in, or Piggot could recommend a promotion from within the ENE branch. The regional director an experienced director to take over, but it could easily be argued that an internal promotion meant a smoother transition and an employee who already understood the nuances and specifics of Brockton Bay itself.

James Tagg may have been an experienced director coming from another branch, but Emily knew he would be an absolute failure in Brockton Bay. The man had a history of working his branch with military-like discipline and rigidity, which Emily could respect. After all, it was what she was used to as a field trooper in the early days of the PRT. But even she recognized that simply didn't work. Capes were unstable, competitive, egotistical, and difficult to control. Even the ones who wanted to be heroes.

It only worked in a place where the gangs were already well-contained. Where there was adequate funding, and the PRT alone, without Protectorate support, could handle the local villain scene. Where one or two new triggers joining a gang would easily end up in PRT custody within a week. Otherwise, rigidity and lack of individuality that the military-esque style would simply drive capes away. In Brockton Bay, both the ABB and Empire were capable of offering the money and freedom to compete against the PRT. Children like Kid Win, or even Clockblocker? Or even former villains like Assault? They would hate Tagg. There was always the chance that, under him, they would quit the Wards and be lured to the Empire or possibly Coil.

Piggot understood the flexibility that was required to work with capes like them. Capes needed to be put under control, but if you squeeze too tight they would simply slip out of your hands like a bar of soap. She had to be strict, but did her best to earn their respect. Tagg would merely demand their respect because of his title. He would be a disaster. He needed to stay in his own damn city, not transfer here.

Then there was Andrew Lorenzo. Piggot's personal favourite. A man who was dedicated, hard-working, and had the respect of his subordinates. Unfortunately, he was lacking in the one important aspect: experience. If she had more time, she would have given him more training, pushed him into more difficult leadership roles, and given him more time to grow. She was certain he would have grown into that role perfectly. Right now, he was probably underqualified to be a director. One day, perhaps, but she needed to choose someone to promote now.

Alana Wong was one recommended to her by Thomas Calvert. The man himself had declined the position, even though he was probably the most qualified. On paper, she met all the requirements. That is, there was nothing she could complain about. The woman was a Brockton native, so Piggot could understand that she had a personal stake in bettering the city. Piggot respected that. At the same time, Wong had done nothing to truly stand out. Perhaps she wasn't being fair, but she felt like Wong just didn't seem like a leader at all. She certainly did everything she she was assigned to quite well, even before joining the PRT. Good grades. Good behaviour. Good punctuality. Good performance.

But she was a follower. A good subordinate. Assign her something, she did it quickly and effectively, without complaints. An excellent employee, in other words. But she wasn't a go-getter. She didn't have much initiative. In short, Piggot didn't know how she would do at the top, giving orders instead of taking them.

In addition, the recommendation by Calvert gave her doubts. It wasn't anything she could put into words, nor something she could mention in writing. But Calvert just gave her the shivers. He had a history with her. He was the only other survivor of the Nilbog incident. She hadn't seen what had happened on his end, but he had gotten out unscathed, unlike her. Some suspected foul play – not just her. But there hadn't been enough evidence to convict. He continued within the PRT, and had been an effective field commander. Much better results than others, which led to quicker promotions. He was just... odd, in a way she couldn't put into words. But he was more than competent. His plans and tactics always seemed to work out.

She suspected that Calvert had some plan for Wong. Or maybe she owed him something, and she would provide him a better position or transfer after she became director. But there was absolutely no evidence that was the case, much less anything illicit.

Maybe Piggot was being unfair. Maybe it was just jealousy, that the man handily survived the same horror that left her disfigured. She could never write "could not accept recommendation due to gut feeling." She would never be so unprofessional. She would have to be objective, if Brockton Bay were to actually have its problems fixed.

While mulling her options, she heard a knock on the door.

"Come in," she said.

A tall, thin man walked in. "Director."

"Calvert. To what do I owe the pleasure?"

He handed over another file. "I've been doing a little thinking. I would like to submit my own application for your position," he said.

"What made you change your mind?" she asked.

"You know the old saying. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself. For what it's worth, I don't think you were treated fairly. But we have to work with the hand we're dealt, don't we? And I don't believe the other candidates can do quite as well for the city as I could," Calvert answered smoothly.

"So are you withdrawing your recommendation for Wong?" she asked.

"Oh, certainly not. Everyone deserves a fair shake," he said.

"I'll take it under consideration," she said. Almost every doubt she had about Wong was now shifted over to Calvert himself. The man may have been some kind of genius, but a borderline sociopathic one. He acted like he was better than everyone else – and, unfortunately, had the results to back it up. It gave a person the kind of ego that could easily lead to their downfall. But so far, his track record was too good to objectively turn down.

* * *

One last hurrah. Piggot decided that, if she were to go out, she would at least go out on a high note. Her career would not end quietly. She had given so much of her life to keeping those damn capes under control.

It would serve quite well as one final test of how well her potential replacements would fare. Hell, if any of them did particularly well, it would help give more weight to her recommendation. Just because the upper management was throwing her under the bus didn't mean she didn't still command some respect.

A coordinated strike against one of the parahuman gangs. It took week of planning with the best info they had – a bit more rushed than usual, but she didn't have as much time. They targeted the Merchants, looking for major drug caches, meth labs, and weapon stockpiles. Striking swiftly enough meant they could potentially eliminate this ugly pustule from the city once and for all.

And then the Endbringer happened. Piggot wouldn't let a damn Endbringer ruin her final chance at making a difference in the city. One that wasn't even happening on the same continent, no less. She was going to put one last, big dent on crime, before she left, capes or no capes. It didn't bother her at all, in fact – capes weren't dependable. Too egotistical, too large an egg in one basket, and none of them had gone through boot camp. She would forge ahead with her more dependable employees; the PRT troops.

Many of the Protectorate capes volunteered for the Endbringer battle, as well as several villains and rogues. This made the Endbringer Truce tricky to navigate. One caveat, of course, was that non-cape criminal operations were still subject to the full force of the law. The regular police departments didn't stand down during Endbringer attacks, after all.

Attacking the Empire's holdings could be a PR risk, since the Empire had a few capes volunteering against the Endbringer. It often gained them some semblance of respect. The ABB was simply too dangerous without the full force of the Protectorate. Lung would have no problems retaliating, as he considered every part of ABB territory his _personal_ territory. The Merchants may have been mostly drug-addled lunatics, that never volunteered for the Endbringers, and that made their holdings fair game.

Drugged-up lowlives they may be, they were smart enough to honor the Truce. That was actually a good thing, to Piggot. She would rather have both her and their capes standing down, rather than both attacking each other. As long as she didn't attempt to target Squealer, Skidmark, Mush, or Trainwreck, it was generally acceptable.

That meant investigation, and acting quickly. It would be too easy for the public to lay even more blame on her if she accidentally stumbled upon one of the Merchant capes. It would be a lose-lose situation – fight and arrest them, and she broke the Endbringer Truce. Back out and let them go, it was a horrible display of incompetence. If they let the information sit for too long, it would become useless. The Merchants were like parasites in more ways than one; they used up one location, then abandoned them just as quickly. They needed to find the Merchant storehouses where their capes weren't.

It changed the mission to a BBPD operation with PRT support, instead of the other way around. And no Protectorate support. The mission parameters were reviewed. The targets were set. All the team leaders would continue as planned with only minor modifications. All the PRT troops had trained well in situations without cape support while dealing with capes. If any of the Merchant capes retaliated, they would still be equipped to handle them, or retreat safely.

With that in mind, she gave orders to go ahead.

* * *

Piggot reviewed the after-action reports. She sighed. Unfortunately, Lorenzo hadn't stepped up when it mattered. It was a rather poor showing. She would chalk it up to bad luck, but that didn't make for convincing reports.

Wong had done just fine, all things considered. Reliable and effective. But when it had come to the planning stages, especially when everything needed to be altered to account for the Endbringer Truce, Wong had been short on suggestions. Lorenzo and Calvert had been much more proactive in that aspect.

Everyone had faltered when the Merchants had more weaponry on hand than expected. The location that Lorenzo took on had something built by Squealer, though the cape herself hadn't been there. He didn't abort the mission fast enough, and had to rely on Calvert's quick thinking to get the job done.

Although Piggot was looking for reasons to turn down Calvert, she just couldn't do it. A gut feeling wasn't good enough. When it came right down to it, Calvert had simply been more effective. He had the respect of those working under him, had effective plans, showed confidence and decisiveness, even under fire. Calvert had all the makings of a good director, though. Piggot knew that she wouldn't be able to recommend anyone but him without appearing biased. Moreover, as uneasy as she was about him, he was still a better candidate than Tagg.

Decision made, she sent off her recommendation. At the very least, the newspapers would be able to write about a successful arrest of over a dozen Merchants, three drug labs, over five million dollars in hard drugs, thousands more in illegal weapons, and one Tinkertech weapon.

* * *

**Author's Notes**:

I originally had all this written from a different perspective, but I just felt like it didn't work as well and didn't show anything we didn't already know. So I basically ended up deleting the whole thing and rewriting it from scratch.

On an entirely different note, there's something that bothers me (which I might not end up addressing in my story, so might as well talk about it here). Cauldron, apparently, was using Brockton Bay as an experiment on Parahuman Feudalism. But... that's just terrible experiment design. Even if there's a parahuman leader/ruler over Brockton Bay, it's still a city inside the USA, subject to USA law and control. Not to mention putting a PRT branch in there. Regardless of whether or not the "parahuman feudalism" worked or failed, it only works or fails if the state and federal laws allow it. And by having a PRT/Protectorate branch in the city, they are directly meddling with the results. Any data from this experiment is basically useless. If they wanted that kind of experiment, they should have done it in a lawless land, or another parallel dimension, where the parahuman ruler IS the highest law of the land. Otherwise the whole thing's invalid.

In any case I think most of fanon agrees that Cauldron just fucked themselves over on many, many levels.


	31. Exposure 1

Exposure 1

Dragon kindly provided us one of her automated planes to take us back to Brockton Bay – apparently Strider was too busy or tired to ferry everyone back, and the world-famous Tinker needed to bring a lot of equipment back to North America anyway. This plane was far more comfortable than the armoured troop transport that had brought everyone over from Seville, though it was also slower. Dragon did provide in-flight entertainment, food, and faux leather seats. Honestly, she could put other airlines out of business if she wanted to, but she officially stated that these flights were purely for Endbringer and other Truce-related issues. What a shame.

Lisa and Amy were actually getting used to each others' company at this point. I was still monitoring what they said, but it was mostly innocuous things. I think they had moved on to favourite books at this point. Seemed like Amy had a thing for cheesy romance novels, while Lisa enjoyed reading the first half of mystery novels. Vicky barely read and preferred watching TV shoes, but I think even she was starting to forget that Lisa was a villain. Or maybe she just valued her sister's welfare that much more.

I was just sitting on the other side of Lisa, relaxing on my own. Abyssal had "disappeared" into the airplane, where I used his bots to keep an eye on the other capes. I had my headphones in to watch a movie.

"Hello, Eunoia. Sorry to interrupt, but this is the closest we can get to a private conversation."

Dragon interrupted my movie. She appeared on screen in front of me, and spoke to me through my headphones. "Uh, hello Dragon."

"So, from one Tinker to another, I'd like to do an analysis of the nanobots you use. I've got a nanobot project going on at the moment as well, and I think there may be a great benefit to all of humanity for mass-producible medical nanites. Would you like to collaborate?"

I was surprised to get that offer, even though I probably shouldn't have. Dragon was known as the world's greatest Tinker for a reason – the fact that she was capable of reverse-engineering almost any other Tinker's creation and mass-manufacture it. She sold her inventions to the PRT, including the containment foam, and it was well-known that she collaborated very frequently with Armsmaster.

Even if she wasn't officially a member of the PRT, she worked closely enough with them that people often forgot that she wasn't.

Of course she wanted to analyze my bots. She wanted to incorporate practically every form of Tinkertech on the planet into her arsenal.

"Ummm... maybe. I guess?"

"Excellent. Now, before we begin this partnership, I feel that it would also be dishonest of me if I didn't let you know... I know about Abyssal. That the two of you are one and the same. I've encountered and analyzed the technology both of you share."

My mouth dropped open. I shut it again before anyone else saw me.

Dragon continued. "Don't worry, I respect the anonymity of capes, including ones who have already been outed. I do have partners worldwide. The reason I'm contacting you is because I noticed something after the battle that Abyssal was using. You see, Armsmaster and I have been working together on a new form of anti-Endbringer weaponry. I think you managed to leapfrog ahead of us and develop something very close to our goal."

"The sword he used for cutting concrete?" I asked. It was really the only new thing I had created. I had no time for development and design while I was here, I was too busy saving lives with a limited number of bots. On top of that, the blade itself still had room for improvement, since it had been something I literally cobbled together in hours. I didn't realize it had been anything special at all.

"Exactly. Incorporating fragments of the Endbringers could be the way to turn their own defenses against them. I think this can be mutually beneficial. We can exchange technology and designs."

"I'll… think about it," I said. In fact, all ten or so of my brains started thinking about it. The fact that she was working with Armsmaster wasn't exactly good news. Even if Dragon was true to her word and kept my secret, Armsmaster might figure out who Abyssal was simply through the technology. And if he figured it out, he would be obligated to report it to the PRT, even if Dragon wasn't. Then they'd start finding out about... the entire city.

Was I actually doing anything illegal though? Trash was trash, and most of my bots were now made from litter. And I _usually_ didn't invade private and restricted areas. If I got my bots out of the PRT building, there would be nothing for them to complain about.

"Well, if you do, please leave behind a few samples of your nanobots on the airplane, if you will. Is it alright for me to contact you by email?"

"I'll leave a few," I said. If she had managed to pick up a few nanobots from the battlefield without me noticing it, surely she already had enough info on them. She probably grabbed the ones that I lost outside my range. Even if I left a few active ones with her now, they would become inactive by the time they reached Vancouver – nothing she wouldn't already have. At least she was polite and up-front about asking for it. She flipped my movie back on and tried to focus on the movie again, but I was a little too distracted now.

I kept an ear out for the conversation going on between Lisa and Amy, as well. They had moved on to family now. Amy was talking about how she felt about being adopted. Vicky was reassuring her, while Lisa told her about her own brother.

This wasn't even a story she had told me before. I decided to listen in more closely. She talked about how her brother had becoming more withdrawn, seemingly only spending time with her out of obligation. He had grown distant with her parents. All this time, she thought he was doing fine, and was only spending time with her out of pity, while he was the popular one both at school and with his parents.

And then he'd committed suicide. It was in the wake of his death that Lisa had triggered. Her parents blamed her for it, refusing to see the truth or take responsibility for their own role in their son's welfare.

That threw me off. If that was her real story, then maybe her concern for Amy was more than just some mutually-beneficial egotism. I never expected Lisa to bare her heart like that, certainly not so quickly. Amy herself had gone quiet. I didn't know what I could add; it was hard not to see some parallels with how the Dallons favoured Vicky. Maybe it was her aura, or maybe they really did just prefer their real daughter than their adopted one.

We spent the rest of the flight back trying to sleep.

* * *

Dad was waiting for us at the airport. He rushed up to me and hugged me tight. "Oh, Taylor... I was so afraid! Thank goodness you're back!"

"It's okay dad," I said, trying to push him away a bit. I don't really know why I was feeling embarrassed... it seemed like every other group in the airport was full of hugs, especially everyone coming off our flight. Even the Empire 88 members were being all happy and huggy, instead of their usual hateful racist selves.

As for the Dallons, Mark was there, since he hadn't participated in the battle itself. He gave the rest of his family a hug, though it seemed more like an obligatory hug than an excited one. He didn't seem to have much emotion behind it. Then again, I didn't remember ever seeing him show much emotion at all. The rest of the teens were too tired from the flight to do much but smile.

I noticed Tattletale didn't have anybody to greet her. I guess she really was alone in this town. I moved over and pulled her in beside my dad. The good thing was he didn't ask any questions. In a place like Brockton Bay, orphans weren't exactly unusual, but from what I gathered, she was originally from out of town.

"Nice to meet you," he said. "You're Taylor's friend?"

"Hi Mr. Hebert. I'm Lisa," she said.

Dad chuckled. "Just call me Danny. Is anyone coming to get you, or...?"

"Um..." Lisa gave me a pleading look.

I shook my head. The whole reason I pulled Lisa along with me to Spain was that Brockton Bay wasn't safe for her any more. "Lisa, you're coming home with us," I said. "It's okay if she stays in the guest room, right dad?"

"Sure. We can have a celebratory dinner together. After everyone showers. And changes clothes. No offense, but you all stink. I'll happily provide a bed, showers, and hot food for anyone who helped protect my precious daughter." He ruffled my hair as he talked to Lisa.

Lisa gave him a sly grin. "Well, they put me to work trying to predict Behemoth's movements and weak spots. I managed to get a warning out just before his final retreating attack."

"I figured that was you," I said with a smile. "Why didn't Dragon announce it?"

"Still arguing over whether I was right or if the evacuation would have actually done any good. Some say they were safer inside the vehicles even if they fell. I got fed up and hit the override button," Lisa said.

"Well I'm glad you did," I said. Amy and I may have gotten a few injuries in our evacuation attempt, but I felt we were still better off than some people I ended up rescuing later.

"Does the rest of your team want to join us?" Dad asked, seeing the rest of New Wave still standing around and chatting.

"I'll go ask," Lisa said quickly, before I could. She practically ran over to the other group and dropped an arm on Amy's shoulder. "Hey! Do you want to join us for-"

"Absolutely not!" Carol said sternly, cutting Lisa off. Her abruptness seemed to take everyone by surprise. "Amy, I forbid you from spending time with... with the likes of her." She didn't say it outright, but I think she was trying to out Lisa as a villain, but stopped short only because it would be breaching the unwritten rules.

Amy didn't even protest. Her head just sunk lower as she avoided her mother's gaze.

"Aww, c'mon, mom. Let her hang out with her new friend," Glory Girl said, trying to come to her sister's defense.

"You're _friends_ now?" she said, voice filled with disapproval.

Dad walked forward, hoping to defuse the situation. "Look, she can just come over for dinner at my house if she wants, maybe a sleepover or something. The girls just finished a tough job, let them have some R&R time."

"No, she-"

"Why not?" Lisa challenged the older woman. "Amy just saved a couple thousand lives. Why are you acting like she needs to be punished or something?"

Mrs. Dallon looked like she was ready to beat down and arrest Lisa then and there. "Don't you talk back to me, girl. You have no right butting into a family matter."

I knew it was a bad idea to jump in now. The situation looked like it was ripe to explode, but I couldn't stand by when my friends were being attacked. "Why doesn't anyone ask what Amy wants?" I said loudly as I stepped up to flank her on the opposite side. "Hey, Amy. Do you feel like going for dinner with us?"

Amy looked unsure, her eyes darting to her mother for confirmation. Mrs. Dallon looked as stern as ever.

"Sure, actual food might be nice," Amy replied.

"Not to mention actual relaxation!" Lisa added.

I think Vicky was catching on. Amy needed cheering up and her mother certainly wasn't going to provide it. "And maybe ice cream?" she said.

"Come on, they'll be fine," Dad said. "I'll keep an eye on them. You don't have to worry."

Mrs. Pelham joined in. "Come on, Carol. Let the kids have some fun. They deserve a treat, and a break."

"Fine," Mrs. Dallon said with a strained smile.

"Yay! Sleepover!" Lisa shouted. "Vicky, do you mind grabbing pyjamas after dinner?"

"What?" Mrs. Dallon seemed to be caught off guard with that statement, but it was too late. Everyone else seemed to be onboard with the idea already, and she didn't exactly have a good reason to deny her. It wasn't even a school day tomorrow.

Lisa and I marched Amy away along with Vicky, making sure she wouldn't second-guess herself.

* * *

Dad drove me and Lisa back to Brockton Bay while Vicky flew Amy back herself – apparently she could go faster than highway speeds, especially when accounting for traffic. It gave them more time to shower and change before dinner.

Meanwhile, I was attempting to reconnect to my bots. I hadn't quite managed to reach the airport originally, which was closer to Boston than Brockton. As dad drove us back home, I tried to reconnect with the bots that got within range, but we were moving too quickly for me to safely re-activate a brain. I didn't want to take one out of stasis only for it to collapse into a useless pile of bots two seconds later. I had to wait until we slowed down and got into Brockton Bay itself before I started to reconnect and reactivate everything.

"Are you able to keep a good watch on things again?" Lisa asked.

"Hold on, testing things out."

_Wakey wakey_, I said to my bots. My range began to rapidly expand, essentially moving outwards at a rate of two city blocks every minute with every brain I reconnected to.

_Hm. What happened? One of my brains thought._

_Oh, right, deactivation and stasis. Looks like it mostly worked..._

_Didn't you leave with more of us than you came back with?_

_Yeah, tough story. Apparently Behemoth is dangerous. Who knew?_

_Looks like long-term memory is mostly intact._

_A few of us got damaged. Stupid rats actually tried nibbling on a few of us. Not too hard for me to fix._

_I think we've all lost short-term memories from before, but I guess that was to be expected._

_I'm pretty sure we lost our intermediate and working memory, too. That was expected. How much of our long-term memory did we lose?_

_I think I remember everything._

_Or are you just updating your memories from my memories?_

_Crap. Hard to tell._

Well, suffering a little bit of amnesia is a pretty small price to pay, all things considered.

"I think I should be back to normal within a few hours. A few patchy bits here and there, but not hard to fix," I told Lisa. "And I'll have access to the landfill, and I can start pumping out more very soon."

"Good. Because I think, for now, I won't be able to go anywhere without you or Abyssal's full vision," Lisa whispered with a shudder. "I'm honestly surprised Coil didn't try to snipe me at the airport."

"Well, you won't have to live like a hermit for long. We already know where Coil's bases are, and I'll keep watch on them round the clock. We'll take him down before you know it."

"Oh thank goodness. You have no idea what it's like living with someone like that on your back," Lisa said.

"Have you thought about what you'll do after? When you go legit?" I asked.

"I don't know yet. I wouldn't mind joining the Protectorate, if I'm sure Coil and all his subordinates were flushed out. But not before that. Maybe the Guild could use me." She gave me a sly grin. "Maybe even New Wave."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, I think Brandish is never going to allow that. She almost rejected me just because I talked to you."

"That woman's wound tighter than a Victorian corset. That whole family's got issues," Lisa said. "I'm gonna have to talk with Amy about that..."

* * *

It wasn't fancy, but hey, after a week in Spain eating mostly army rations, good old greasy American comfort food was what we needed. And Brockton Bay didn't get much greasier than Fugly Bob's.

"Okay, seriously, what is up with your mother? She actually was treating you like you did something wrong," Lisa said as we ate.

"She's just really strict," Vicky said. "She has high expectations. Come on, half the Asian kids at school talk about their parents like that. It doesn't mean she doesn't love Ames. It's just tough love."

"She doesn't treat you like that," I pointed out.

"Probably her aura," Lisa said. "It makes everyone nicer to her."

"Hey! It's not like I can just turn it off completely," Vicky said defensively.

"I'm not blaming you, I'm just saying, it's kind of tough for Amy when she works just as hard but never gets the same recognition," Lisa said. "I mean, her mom didn't even give her a hug after surviving Behemoth."

"Wait, what?" Vicky dropped her burger with a splat. "Come on, you've got to be exaggerating... She must have."

I shook my head. "No, I was watching. Your mom didn't even give her as much as a pat on the back."

Amy, who had been picking at her food until now, said, "I don't know, maybe if I saved all of humanity from certain extinction, she might find it acceptable," she muttered.

I knew that look. It was how I used to act at school. When the trio had messed up my day again and the teachers would never do a thing about it. It was the same way I held myself when I had completely given up and I just knew there was nothing anybody could do about it. Amy had been the one who had let me rise above that, given me skills that let me rise above petty theft from drug dealers, let me come out and be proud of my own skills. There was no way I'd let her fall into that hole.

"No, it's not okay," I said. "Amy, you're the most amazing person I've ever met. You deserve better. Dad, back me up here."

Dad was looking sheepish, not wanting to get into an argument between teenage girls. "I... er..."

I decided to play the big cards. "What would mom have done if Amy was her daughter?"

"Annette would be so proud of you, that's for sure. I mean, she'd be proud of you no matter what you chose to do. But risking yourself for others, working yourself that hard to help, she would be the proudest mom on the planet. She'd still worry and fuss over you, of course, making sure you were getting enough sleep and tucking you in at night..."

"Dad, she's older than me."

"She would still have done it. The same for you, too, Taylor," Dad said with a forlorn smile. He turned away to wipe his eyes a little. "Sorry, just... give me a minute."

"You know, that's what mom should be doing. I'm sorry I didn't even notice. I'm gonna have to chat with mom when I get home tonight," Vicky huffed.

"I think your mom stresses you out more than Behemoth does," Lisa said to Amy, looking at her like she was analyzing her. "You really need a girls' night out. Or girls' night in. We're going to have so much fun tonight."

"What? What are you planning?"

"We're having a sleepover, right? C'mon, pick a movie, grab a few pints of your favourite flavours… don't tell me you haven't ever had a sleepover before," Lisa said with a grin. I was just looking at her. What on earth was she thinking? I mean, she already told me she was planning on staying holed up at my house until Coil was gone, but I thought she would have been a bit more focused on the job.

Amy shied away, but Vicky answered for her. "Amy's a bit of a wallflower, if you haven't noticed. I try to drag her out to some parties, but she's never done a sleepover. Never too late though!" She grinned while wrapping her arm around her sister.

Amy just blushed harder.

Lisa gave a knowing smile, and said, "Oh, since Eric isn't joining, it'll be an all-girls' sleepover! We'll go easy on you; we won't invite any boys over until you've had a few practice rounds, huh?"

Vicky laughed. Amy meekly said, "That's not... I don't..."

Just when I thought Lisa was putting too much pressure on Amy, she turned to me with the same devious look on her face. "Oh, Taylor. You've done sleepovers before. But not for such a long time. You're going to need a few practice rounds too, right?"

I choked. Yeah, Emma and I had slept over at each others' houses frequently when we were best friends. I'd pushed it out of my mind after... well, she decided I was her best punching bag instead of best friend. I forgot I missed those days. But... I had new friends now. I needed to make some new memories with them, too. "Yeah, don't worry, Amy. It'll be fun," I assured her.

"And I'm sure Vicky knows a few guys..."

"Ahem." My dad cleared his throat loudly, with an amused but exasperated expression on his face. I suppose he was glad I was having fun with girls my age again, but he certainly wasn't looking forward to, well, having to give the talk or anything like that.

"Sorry, Mr. Hebert. We'll be good, I promise!" Lisa said, grinning like a fox.

* * *

I hadn't intended Lisa to replace Emma in my life. It just happened, though I could never be sure if that was part of Lisa's scheming or not. They were just more similar than I really wanted to admit. Superficially, they were both pretty, outgoing, and confident. Underneath that, though, Lisa was supportive, like Emma used to be. But she was also much more devious and crafty, something that reminded me too much of the current Emma, even though I wasn't the current target of her ire. Made me wonder how I would have turned out if Emma had decided to randomly bully someone else, and dragged me along with it. Would I have been part of the Bitch Trio?

Fuck it, no point in wasting time with what-ifs. Emma was out of my life. I'd missed having friends. I was still wavering on the line with the rest of New Wave between "friendly co-workers" and "actual personal friends", but I ended up hanging around Amy and Vicky often enough that they fell into the latter category. I wasn't too sure about the Pelhams at this point, but at least we were good co-workers.

Lisa had picked our movies for us. After Behemoth, none of us were in the mood for anything with action, explosions, or disasters. She'd chosen a cheesy romance movie and a creepy thriller. The first movie had us sharing ice cream, the second had us sharing blankets.

I suppose that Lisa picked the movies with great precision, all of us were tired out just as the second one ended, and we all basically fell asleep together. The Dallon sisters were hugging each other as they fell asleep; Amy looked a little uncomfortable but content in Vicky's arms. Lisa was sprawled out; I suppose she was used to living on her own, but for once she didn't seem to be closely guarding herself.

I, of course, didn't really fall asleep. My body did, but my powers let me keep watch over the house, and the city, while my friends slept. After nearly losing everyone to Behemoth, I couldn't afford to let them get hurt by anyone.

Including Lisa herself.

When everyone had fallen asleep, I woke my own body up with a nudge from my nanobots. Then I quietly poked Lisa awake while the sisters were asleep. "Lisa. Tell me what the hell you're planning. Right now."

Lisa sighed again. "Coil! It's always about Coil. He's not gone yet, and I need all the help I can get. Abyssal's cool and all, but it helps to have a girl who can out-punch a locomotive on my side, alright?"

"You're planning on throwing Vicky against Coil?"

"You know her even better than I do. Don't tell me she wouldn't enjoy the hell out of being able to punch a villain out of a secret base."

Okay, that she would. But Coil was dangerous. I remember seeing mercenaries, with Tinkertech rifles. There was no guarantee her invulnerability would hold up against weird stuff like that.

"Yeah, and it's also easy to convince her to do something stupid, whether she enjoys it or not," I said.

"Then it's our job to make it less stupid," Lisa said. "Abyssal is expendable. Glory Girl can be a distraction or support, I don't care. But having her there means less opportunities for Coil to slip away, plain and simple. You scout things out, I'll make a plan, we make sure everything's ready before diving in."

"Fine, but you tell her exactly what you're planning. Let her make a properly informed choice."

"Alright, now let me get my beauty sleep," Lisa said before turning over and snuggling deeper into her pillow.

* * *

"Hey. Wake up." This time, it was Lisa's turn to wake me up.

"I'm awake," I muttered as my body got my blood flowing again. The sun was just barely rising.

"Did you do much overnight?" Lisa asked.

"Yeah, I have full control over the public areas of the city, filled in the gaps, making a few extra tons of bots from the landfill," I whispered. "Most of the bots got cleaned out of Coil's bases while we were gone, but I'll sneak them back in within a few hours."

"Good. Have you checked your email yet? Dragon wanted to get into contact with you, didn't she?" Lisa reminded me.

"Please tell me you aren't trying to recruit her too," I said.

"Maaaaaaybe? Haha, not really. She's a bit out of my league, you could say."

"Besides, she lives on the west coast. She's probably still asleep. I can wait a bit before I reply to her."

"Actually, she doesn't sleep. Probably a Noctis cape of some sort, or she automates a lot of her stuff. Or maybe she just has a massive caffeine and drug regimen like Armsmaster," Lisa said nonchalantly.

"You got that from chatting with her over Behemoth?"

"And the week-long recovery effort after. Publicly-known Birdcage data. The Guild's operations major operations. Not hard to piece together even if you don't have a Thinker power. Dragon barely sleeps, if at all. Just thought you should know who you're dealing with," she offered.

"Well. Thanks. Anything else you can tell me about her? How likely is she gonna out Abyssal to the PRT?"

"Can't say for sure. I get the sense that she's big on duty and legality. Like, you know the Canary case? She was very vocal in her protests. Tried to stand up for the poor girl. And she was right. But when it came right down to it, she got orders to put the girl in the Birdcage, so she put the girl in the Birdcage. Strong morals but almost stupidly obedient – she'd never stand up for her own values if it required breaking the law. Very much a Lawful Good white-knight type. Heh, and she calls herself Dragon," Lisa laughed to herself. "Just keep me out of the conversation. I think she'll understand my situation, but like Canary..."

"Should I even ask her hypothetically?"

Lisa scrunched her face up. "Hm… if you keep it vague enough. I mean it when I said she's big on legality. Like, she will follow the letter of the law, even if she disagrees with it. But she can play the plausible deniability card if she wants to. That's all the wiggle room you get with her. Be careful."

"Thanks," I said, before I got up, stretched out, and went over to my computer. What do you know, Dragon had already left me an email. I hadn't even given her my email address, but... well, it was listed on the New Wave website. That was the least of Dragon's abilities.

She had already admitted that she knew about Abyssal. All that from analyzing some bots I had lost on the battlefield. And she often worked with the PRT, especially Armsmaster. She did promise to keep a secret… and, to be honest, if she decided to tell, I couldn't really stop her. She already had the information she needed. I had no leverage on her; the only thing for me to do was take her at her word.

Then again, for one of the most secretive, yet well-informed capes in the world, her reputation may have been good enough. After all, she didn't just collaborate with Armsmaster, but with dozens of different Tinkers around the world. Not to mention all the capes that trusted her with possibly sensitive biometric information at all the Endbringer fights and her wristbands. To be honest, with all this trust placed on Dragon internationally, few people had ever complained. Aside from the Dragonslayers, who were basically nutjobs who took the whole dragon-fantasy thing too seriously.

Really, whether I decided to work with her or not, I would be trusting her to keep my secrets either way. At the very least I could at least try to get on her good side, and get all the benefits of collaboration. Partnering with the world's greatest Tinker! Me! If there was anything that would get me out of the hellhole that was Brockton Bay, this would be it. I'd just have to forge ahead.

* * *

Subject: Tinkering Collaboration

From: [Dragon]

To: [Eunoia]

Hello, Eunoia. I hope you made your way home safely. As we discussed before, I would like to do some collaborative tinkering with you, especially with regards to nanorobotics and molecular assembly. I've analyzed some of the bots you provided, and in return, I'd like to show you some designs for nanobots I've been working on myself, in the hopes that you may find some inspiration from it.

I hope we can work even more closely, and if you're interested, I'd like to discuss a direct collaboration and set up a joint workshop where I can work with you by video chat, maybe a remote drone as well.

Best wishes,

Dragon

[Reply] [Forward] [Archive] [Download Attachment (53.4 MB)]

* * *

I didn't even know what to do with the attachment. It was in a file format that I'd never seen before, probably used by a program that would make my cheap little laptop melt down if I tried. The damn thing was just second-hand salvage Dad had picked up from the Dockworkers Union office.

My guess was that it was some kind of design/engineering software. Maybe it was publicly available, but if it was professional stuff, I knew it cost thousands of dollars. Or maybe it was a custom thing that she or Armsmaster used. She knew I was a Tinker, and maybe she assumed that I used the same kind of software as other tinkers. Was there a common software among Tinkers? I didn't know, since I had never really been part of the Tinker "community," if there was one.

More importantly, what did I have to lose if I accepted her offer? If she used that kind of complex design and engineering stuff, she probably expected me to do the same. I didn't want to look like a fraud - a Tinker who barely used the computer for much more than browsing PHO and watching cat videos? Who'd heard of such a thing? I couldn't compare to her, who navigated the internet like it were her own backyard. This was Dragon after all. Then again, almost every Tinker on the planet was pathetic compared to her. She was one of the greatest celebrity Tinkers since Hero died. And she _asked_ to work with me, not the other way around.

I'd be stupid to refuse it, but I was worried I'd be such a disappointment. I was way better at actually using my bots than trying to explain the engineering behind them. Still, Dragon was waiting. It would be rude not to answer.

"Taylor, I think you have a lot more to gain working with her than not," Lisa advised. I was so starstruck that I had forgotten she was still sitting beside me. "Really, it's better to be allies, if only for the reason that you don't want to be her enemy."

Perish the thought. The last thing I wanted to do was piss Dragon off somehow. If only I could figure out what made her tick. Dragon wasn't Emma, after all… she was consistent. Reliable. Internationally renowned.

Then again, Emma was pretty popular too. Nobody spoke up when she acted like a total bitch to me. Dragon could do that, except instead of ruling high school she could probably take over several small nations instead. Nobody wanted to suffer Emma's posse. Dragon had a literal army of combat drones.

Lisa was looking at the faces I was making, and probably figured things out from there. "You're comparing her to that bitch friend of yours, aren't you? Don't. Dragon isn't psycho. She's a bit weird, introverted, but I told you already. She's a white knight. Trust me. I can tell. If she were to betray you, it would be on someone else's orders."

* * *

Re: Tinkering Collaboration

To: [Dragon]

From: [Eunoia]

Hello, Dragon! Thanks for the invitation. I'd love to work with you. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to read the file you sent me. I don't have the right software to open it. Would it be too much trouble for me to do my work at one of your workshops? I don't have my own place right now. Sorry. I'd be glad to work on new ideas with you, though!

Sincerely,

Eunoia

* * *

I was nervous when I hit the send button, wondering if I had sounded too casual. I was still re-reading my own reply, thinking of how I could have phrased things better, when I saw that she had already replied. So apparently Dragon was awake at 7 AM… or 4 AM Pacific time.

* * *

Re: Re: Tinkering Collaboration

From: [Dragon]

To: [Eunoia]

My apologies, Eunoia. I've been working with Armsmaster and Kid Win so often that I thought you would be using similar methods for Tinkering. I really do want you to see my designs; it's only fair after I've seen yours.

Unfortunately, due to my condition, I can't meet you in person or bring you into my personal tinkering workshop. But I can send out a remote suit and one of my mobile labs to Brockton Bay if you would like to meet. Will the long-term parking lot by Captain's Hill work for you? I can have them ready in three days.

Dragon

* * *

"Hurry up and tell her you're good to meet, you know you can't wait," Lisa said. "And having Dragon be more physically present is probably a good thing. Also, there's something I need you to check out right now."

"Like what?" I asked as I typed a hasty acceptance.

"Those cars aren't from this neighbourhood," Lisa said, peering out the window.

I used my bots to look outside. She was right. Leave it to Lisa to figure out that cars didn't belong here before I did. I had noticed them, but they didn't have any gang members inside and didn't seem to be hostile, but they were suspiciously parked nearby, and the people weren't getting out. It was like they were staking out the house.

"Should I use Abyssal to scare them off?" I asked, wondering if it was worth risking more people linking Abyssal to me more closely. If they were gang members, though, I wasn't going to take any risks.

"Nah, don't want him too closely linked to you. I can guess why they're here," Lisa said as she tapped rapidly at her phone. "Check the news. Or PHO. Or whatever."

I decided to check PHO – if the news was big enough, multiple people would have posted links to multiple news websites anyway.

My hunch was right. There were multiple threads in the USA-East subforum. Aside from the usual stuff happening in New York and Florida, apparently my lawsuit had ballooned into pretty big news. It went way beyond just the school board and the local PRT, and it seemed like everyone wanted a say. The BB Herald, the Monitor, the Daily Sun, all the local and state news outlets had opinion pieces on it. It had gotten bad enough that the Youth Guard, and even the PRT itself had posted official statements on their respective websites.

Clearly something must have blown up last week, and it wasn't just Gibraltar.

Apparently the lawsuit had concluded while I was out of the country? Could they do that? I suppose they could, since Mr. Bryson was still doing his job. I didn't need to be present when it happened. But it would have been nice to know. Someone should have called me.

Now I needed to call the lawyer to figure out exactly what happened.

"So it looks like all those cars outside are probably journalists. Or paparazzi, if you prefer. Probably looking to squeeze a quote out of you," Lisa said. "My advice? Don't say anything without going through your lawyer first."

I wasn't too worried about the paparazzi. At least they couldn't physically assault me and get away with it like Sophia had. I still wasn't very prepared for this, though. The lawyer had basically come out of nowhere offering to help, and gathered a lot of information without needing my help. And now the case had ended and he didn't even tell me? What the hell?

I suppose I would be spending more than a few days hunkering down at home with Lisa to avoid them. But I needed to get the details straight from the source right now.

* * *

"I'm sorry, but Mr. Bryson isn't in the office at the moment. We would like to remind everyone that our firm respects all attorney-client confidentiality," said the lady in a tired and exasperated voice. It sounded like she had to deal with as many reporters as I did.

"But I AM the client!" I pointed out.

"Can I get your name?"

"Taylor Hebert!"

"Oh, the Hebert case. Of course. Well, apologies, but Mr. Bryson decided to take a well-earned vacation. However, we do not want to discuss details over the phone. If you would like to discuss the results of the case further, we'll need you to book an appointment."

"Ugh. Okay, fine, um… I'll have to figure that out a good time later," I said. Ugh. I wasn't going to wander outside right now, and I didn't want to waste time on the lawsuit thing right now. Not that I even needed the money, since I still had barely made a dent in the Bakuda bounty money.

"Lisa, help me out. Is it normal for a lawyer to just go on vacation right after a big case?" I asked.

"Normal? No. But not unheard of," Lisa said. "Maybe he was overdue for a vacation or something. I'd rather worry about more immediate problems. Come on, let's have breakfast. The Dallon sisters are awake."

I quickly went downstairs to join them. Dad had actually gone all-out, fresh waffles with fruit and whipped cream, and he was making poached eggs! "Thought you girls deserved something nice. Also, don't answer the door," he said.

"Yeah. There's a bazillion reporters out there. I'm guessing it's about the lawsuit thing. What did I miss?"

"You sure you want to discuss that at the breakfast table?" Dad asked.

"Yeah. The sooner the better," I said with a shrug. I felt fine with Amy and Vicky hearing about this stuff – in fact, it was better that they knew now, instead of learning it via the rumour mill.

"So, basically, you win some, you lost some. As expected," Dad started. "Unfortunately, since the principal and the school deliberately failed to document anything about your bullying, there wasn't much more than hearsay. Even though we proved that they failed to keep a proper record of the bullying, it was a lot harder to prove _how much_ was deliberately destroyed by them, versus what never got reported in the first place. Your hospital records were hard evidence that you suffered a severe injury at school, which they failed to follow up properly. There were a few character witnesses both for you and against Sophia Hess, so we came out on top there. Emma more or less got off scot-free, Alan must have coached her for the testimony. The end result is that there have been fines levied, the school is getting a new principal, but apparently we won't get too much in the way of emotional damages and such because you're doing so well now. And, um… the fact that I wasn't there to help you. They did pin some of the blame on me, and… they weren't completely wrong. I really didn't have much in my own defense. I'm sorry, Taylor." Dad sighed heavily.

"Ugh. That's alright, I guess. I'd rather be not-crazy than get some money for vague damages," I said. "At least things are… better between us now. I prefer it this way."

"You know they actually tried to use the fact that you went to help against Behemoth against you? Tried to say you were into risky behavior and attention-seeking. Thankfully there were plenty of people from the hospital willing to speak for you."

"Yeah, no matter what you do, there's always someone willing to make it sound like a bad thing," Vicky nodded in agreement.

"Anyways, on the PRT side of things, they managed to absolve themselves of most issues. Basically the argument was that they weren't responsible for monitoring Sophia's civilian life, and the Youth Guard backed them up. They managed to shift almost all the blame on the school, which failed to report any wrongdoing, and her parole officer, who also failed to check in or report anything properly. The officer's been fired, of course, but that doesn't mean too much for us. They may garnish her wages for a while but it'll barely amount to anything."

"The media's not letting them get off so easily though," Lisa pointed out.

"Yeah. I mean, Miss Militia told me as such months ago, but I guess I should have taken her a bit more seriously. I can't say I shouldn't have expected it."

"Miss Militia's pretty nice, she wouldn't lie to you about those things," Vicky confirmed. "Still, kinda sucks that they aren't taking responsibility for it. Nobody's even going to get punished? Aside from that parole officer."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Dad said. "The director has chosen to 'retire early' as they put it. They won't say it's because of the lawsuit, probably to save face, but everyone's treating it like it is. In the end, a smaller payout than we expected, but the school board has been forced to establish anti-bullying programs and the PRT is shuffling around their leadership. Thank goodness Mr. Bryson worked on contingency. The lawyer's fees normally would have ended up costing us more than what we won."

Well, getting them to legally admit they were wrong, even without a payout for us, was more than I had expected. We all finished the breakfast with some more lighthearted chat, mostly at the relief of finally being home. Speaking of which…

"Alright, it's time for me and Ames to head back. Thanks for having us over! It was great, we should do this again some time!" Vicky said.

"Yeah… it was actually kind of fun. See you at the hospital, Taylor," Amy said.

"Wait, before you go… can I chat with you, Victoria?" Lisa said.

She pulled her aside. I listened in with my bots, and made sure Lisa wasn't being all tricky. Well, no less tricky than she normally was. But she made good on her promise – just an invite to "take down a really mean bad guy when the time is right," basically. Vicky couldn't resist the urge for a well-justified brawl against the baddies, as predicted.

"What are they talking about?" Amy asked.

"Oh, probably looking for recruits to capture Lisa's old boss. Oh, by the way, please don't let anyone know she's here. Her former boss has a way of, uh, finding things out. And eliminating loose ends."

"Yeah, no worries. Vicky and I are going to fly home out your back yard," Amy said. "I just hope Lisa isn't trying to drag you into her problems too much. Not sure if my family will want to join in, but I'm sure Vicky will find a way to convince them."

I waved goodbye as they rose into the air, all while my bots began to work their way into Coil's bases.

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I totally forgot that FFN completely edits out all websites and links... ugh. now the email sections just look silly.


	32. Exposure 2

Exposure 2

"Alright, time for us to get to work too," Lisa said as soon as Dad had left for his job.

"I've got my eye on all his bases right now," I said. "Do you at least have a general plan?"

"Are you sure you're watching all the entrances and exits? He has to have an emergency escape, too." Lisa asked.

"All of them except that one shielded area blocking my bots. I'm watching them twenty-four seven. I've seen a bunch of people go in and out, but they all look like mercenaries or PRT employees. Oh, and the Travellers came by once."

"Fake uniforms," Lisa said dismissively. "No man in a black costume with a snake on it? I know he would never reveal his face to his own employees."

"None so far, but there's one section of his main base that I can't see inside. Some kind of field that's blocking me. I've seen a few people walk in and out through the area, but no snake-costume guy."

"Right. Keep a lookout for him. And anyone who goes into or leaves that blind zone of yours. It's obviously his most secure area and his main office."

"But how are we actually going to get him?" I asked.

"Still trying to figure that out. Help me out here. How do you catch a guy who always makes the best decision possible?"

I shrugged. "Make every possible decision a bad one."

"Right. That's how I got the Undersiders to disband. Basically I managed to get a situation where he had to choose to let Bakuda keep bombing the city, or we got the bounty money. Obviously he chose the latter… but at this point I'm not even sure if that was the bad decision. He's already got the Travellers working for him and they seem to be heavier hitters than the Undersiders ever were."

"And how do we guarantee that?"

"Aside from hitting every single one of his bases at once, while he's inside? I don't know. There's got to be something he finds valuable. Really valuable. Force him to choose between that or his own freedom, maybe. But we have to separate them… ahhrg. Let me think about this for a while, I'll be able to figure out more if you can give me surveillance data."

"Alright then, but I have to get to work," I told her. "If you need anything, just shout. My bots will be able to hear you no matter where you are in the house."

"You know some people would find that really creepy, right?" Lisa pointed out.

"And you're creepy when you do your pretend-psychic thing," I retorted.

"As long as you're watching everything _around _me too," Lisa sighed.

"Big Sister is always watching," I said in as ominous voice as I could manage. "Except when you go to the bathroom."

"I'm older than you," she reminded me.

* * *

"Eunoia! Thank goodness you're safe. Are you sure you don't need more rest after… you know…?" Dr. Kardon asked.

"I'll be fine," I said.

"Oh, good, because there's a lot more work to be done," he told me. "We've got a few new studies lined up and ready to go, we're just waiting on you."

"Wait, what?"

"I've got a colleague who's doing research into nerve damage and spinal repair. Lots of Tinkertech solutions out there to alleviate paraplegia and quadriplegia already, but he's hoping for a breakthrough that can eventually be mass-manufactured."

"And I'm another candidate?"

"Well, unlike most other Tinkers, your technology has actually helped me publish an actual paper. He's hoping your brain-mapping abilities translate to nerve-mapping as well. Come on, I'll introduce you to him."

Over in the neurology department, I met up with a gangly, geeky-looking but cheerful man. He shook my hand excitedly. "Eunoia, is it? I'm Dr. Crissom, Jonas Crissom. When I heard about you on the news, I had to call Simon right away to see if he knew you. What do you know, you've already been working with him for months!"

"Uh…"

"Shame on you, Simon, for keeping her a secret!" Dr. Crissom laughed. "Come on, I have a lot of ideas. I need to know if this is possible. This could change millions of lives across the country!"

"Uh…" I was a little overwhelmed by how… enthusiastic this guy was. But it didn't take too long for me to get used to his pace, as it were. He was passionate about his work, and that made it easy to get him to explain what he wanted.

In short, however, it wasn't really that much different from what I was already doing. I probably couldn't have done it when I first started at the hospital. Back then, my bots were only small enough to safely flow through the bloodstream, and later, mimic human neurons. Now, however, they were almost small enough to mimic parts of neurons, namely the axons and dendrites.

That part was kind of important. Unlike building my clone brains, where I had bots act as entire neurons, I couldn't replace a patient's entire cell. I needed to just fix the parts that were injured or severed. Moreover, I couldn't – and didn't want to be – in control of that person, as I would have to be in order to keep it working.

What Dr. Crissom was searching for, basically, was either a healing technology that could cause nerves to repair themselves, or a prosthetic that bridged the broken connection. And, of course, it had to be precise enough that the patient didn't end up with crossed wires inside their body.

"Do you think your technology could do it?" he asked.

"I might. Let me check," I said. What better way than to test with a few of my own body? I didn't actually damage my nerves, of course. I just pinched off the nerves to my left pinky toe. Even if things went wrong, it was no big loss. All it took was a few seconds before it went numb, like it had fallen asleep. I then made a "bridge" with my bots over the gap causing the signal blockage. Another few minutes of a little fine-tuning and adjustment, and I could feel normally with that toe again.

Not too hard, to be honest. It would take more practice and experimentation to make sure it would last without my constant input, and was safe for the general public, but a simple conductive bridge was something my bots could build easily.

I realized that it probably also had some application in surgery as a quick anesthetic, but I could bring that up with the surgical teams later.

"I take it that the proof-of-concept works?" Dr. Crissom asked. I only then realized he had been staring at me as I was poking my own toe repeatedly for the past few minutes.

"Yes," I replied meekly as I hurriedly put my shoe back on.

"Excellent! Now tell me, in detail, exactly what you did. We need all this down in writing. Is it reversible? Could I try? First-hand experience would yield some fabulous data. In fact, I already know several patients who would be willing to volunteer for experimental trials…"

"Hey, don't forget about us," Dr. Kardon said. "Yui and I still haven't finished our own research, you know. And the ER still wants you on-call whenever possible."

I suspected my days at the hospital were not going to get any shorter for a while.

* * *

"You've got a message from Dragon, she probably wants a video chat," Lisa told me when I got home. I had been watching her the entire time, and I knew she hadn't gone through my emails. Of course she knew.

It looked like she wanted to do more collaboration while she was sorting out the legal stuff about setting up a temporary workshop in the city. I guess I should have been honoured that one of the foremost Tinkers in the world took the time out of her day to talk to me. And I also didn't want to deal with the throngs of "journalists" who swarmed me every time I was out in public, but I was getting somewhat bored of simply being either at my house or at the hospital. So yes, I accepted. I shouldn't have been surprised when Dragon was able to respond to me almost instantly.

"Good evening, Eunoia!" Dragon looked like she was in her thirties, but difficult to place. She had tan skin, dark hair, and fairly average features. Probably a mixed-race. I guess that wasn't too uncommon given that she was from Vancouver. There wasn't much behind her in the background either; she must have been an exceptionally clean Tinker.

"Good evening, Dragon," I responded. "So, what do you want to talk about?"

"A few things, actually. Some ways you can help me, and some ways I could help you," Dragon said. "First off, I just want to thank you again for leaving me some of those samples. It's an ingenious bot design."

That was actually a surprise. Dragon's specialty was figuring out other Tinkertech and then adapting and mass-manufacturing it. My bots were deliberately made to be as simple as possible; I thought she would have found them boring. I didn't think she was patronizing me, though. "Really? You think so?"

"There were a few things I liked in particular. The micro-solar recharging is actually more efficient than most non-tinkertech solar panels. Do you mind if I utilize the design? I'm willing to help you patent it if you allow me to produce them at a favourable royalty rate."

"Oh. I thought you'd already have better," I said. Dragon's tech was among the top in the world, not just because she could figure out other Tinkers' inventions, but because she could combine elements of several different Tinkers.

"Depends on how you look at it. I have more efficient panels, but I believe your design can be better applied for specific use cases," Dragon clarified.

Just as I was thinking. "What kind of applications are you thinking?"

"Well, microscopic applications for one, obviously. Secondly, high-durability and self-repairing solar panels, which is better for long-term hazardous environments. Also, frequent-shifting or flexible materials, like solar-powered clothing."

I never even thought of those. Well, the solar-powered clothing was technically my costume sometimes. But I wasn't really interested in making them for anyone other than myself... at least, not yet.

"Secondly, I have to ask. The diamond lens system, what gave you the idea?"

"I just needed a really solid cutting tool," I said. "Glass wasn't doing the job any more. But then, you know, to keep things simple..."

"You made it pull double duty. I was just thinking about how well it captures light and improves the overall efficiency of the light-gathering. But I'm curious as to why you chose that shape. Wouldn't it be even more efficient if it was a more symmetrical lens?"

"Oh, I guess it would be. But that wasn't the primary function... or even secondary. I originally designed it as a cutting and gripping tool first, then as armour plating second. The solar power was maybe third? Actually fourth, if you count the camouflage capabilities. Most of the bots can recharge to full in less than an hour of sunlight anyway. The shape is more for the camouflage, it reflects colours differently depending on angle."

Dragon actually chuckled at that. "So that's how you produce different colours in your armour? Simply angling the crystals... ingenious. Armour, light lensing, and camouflage. I would have used multicolour paints, but this is truly efficiency in design."

"I actually started off using paints, but when I realized I could do this, there wasn't much point any more," I mentioned, recalling my first few outings against the Merchants.

"Any other hidden functions you would like to share?"

"I guess I use them to see, too. But it takes close to a million of them working together at once to form a coherent image, at minimum."

"A solar cell also being used as a photodiode - it seems obvious, in retrospect, as long as you can sort through the noise. But how do you coordinate which bot corresponds to which pixel, if they shift around so much?"

I shrugged. "I dunno. I just do." It was a mystery of my power, even to me. I just inherently knew which bot was which if I concentrated, even if they were numbering into the quadrillion and quntillions. Not that I actively kept track of each one all the time, but I just knew I could if I had to. My Master power just sorted them out for me.

For the first time, Dragon actually looked frustrated. "Is it a collective function that requires multiples? Wait, that wouldn't make sense… I don't see any control hardware."

"Oh. Yeah, they don't have any," I said. "I guess I have some kind of... Master power that lets me control the bots inherently."

"Oh. So you're not purely a Tinker, then. Well, that makes much more sense. I've been trying to piggyback a micro-antenna system on each bot, but the system would triple the size of the bot itself and produced too much interference and noise. Tell me, do your bots have any form of memory or onboard processing?"

"No, I just tell them what to do. They don't do anything else otherwise." I didn't want to let her know about the extra brains just yet. She had been curious, but I didn't want to give away all of my best secrets.

"I guess you have a minimum range for that control, then. One that doesn't stretch coast to coast," Dragon chuckled.

"Distance? Just two blocks," I said. I was about to leave it at that, but I remembered there was no point in trying to bullshit Dragon. She knew about Abyssal already, and saw him walking around on the battlefield against Behemoth. "I, uh, managed to find a way to extend my own range, though."

"Interesting. I didn't notice any control signals at Gibraltar because I usually only bring the specialty equipment during Simurgh attacks," Dragon said. "Would you like to share how it works? It must be quite robust if it could survive Behemoth's repeated EMP attacks."

"Umm… I'd rather not for now," I said reluctantly.

"Sorry, I was just curious. Every Tinker has their own secrets. So, can you control any kind of nanobot? Not that I believe you've encountered any other nanite Tinkers operating on the east coast."

"You know, I've never tried. But from what I can tell, I can't seem to control anything I don't make myself," I explained. "I've controlled robots the size of my hand when I first started, so it's not a size issue."

"Curious. I'd like to try an experiment. I'm going to make exact replicas of the bots you left with me as best I can, and I'll send them to you in the mail. Let me know if you can control them at all when you receive them," she said.

Seemed like fun. I never had anyone to help me experiment. Lisa was great for helping me with ideas, but working with another Tinker was something I needed which I didn't even realize I had been missing.

"There's one more thing. When you say that you can only control things that you build, how many degrees of separation qualify? Clearly you can't build all these by hand, by yourself. Do you program an automated production line? Did you use purchased tools, or do you produce them using tools you produced yourself?"

Clearly Dragon thought a lot more deeply about things than I did.

"After I got down to a certain size, I just started getting the bots to build themselves from raw materials," I said. "I think my power considers the bots an extension of my own body, so in a sense, I'm still making them. That's just how it feels when I control them, at least. In my head they're like an extra limb or something."

Dragon paused for a second. "Your bots self-replicate?"

"Self? No, I have to be in control of every step of the process," I said.

Dragon's face went through some… interesting expressions. Surprise? Confusion? Excitement? Hard to tell, but she was thinking hard about whatever it was. "Before I go on, Eunoia, have you ever heard of a villain named Nilbog?"

"Heard of, but I don't really know the details." I think I may have heard the name tossed around online casually and that it was a vaguely bad thing, the same way that Hitler or Slaughterhouse Nine were "bad." Presumably he wasn't as bad as those two because he wasn't as infamous.

"In short, it started in the town of Ellisburg in northwest New York. It's actually not too far from Brockton Bay, but it had nothing noteworthy in it. Population approximately five thousand. Ten years ago, every person living there vanished off the map. Except for one."

I nodded. Five thousand was probably in the range of the Slaughterhouse Nine's kill count, I think. Except it was a single person instead of nine. Bakuda hadn't gone anywhere near that number and she already earned a Kill Order. "Why did he do it?"

"Nobody knows. But it wasn't just the murders. It's the fact that he can create 'goblins,' and he rules over them as the 'goblin king.' These 'goblins' also have their own varying parahuman powers. He's effectively consumed nearly all animals in a forty square mile area, making it a kill-zone for any human that enters. When he consumes, he 'processes' the biological material and turns it into another one of his goblin followers."

"And you think that I would..."

"The point is not whether or not you would. You've been an exemplary hero, saving lives and advancing medical science already, and you've only been a cape for a few months. That's not in question. But people can be… exceptionally paranoid around capes," Dragon explained. "In fact, every local PRT branch has information and potential countermeasures for every cape, including their own employees, in case they turn villain one day."

"They don't even trust their own heroes?"

"It's simply a matter of perception and preparedness. Especially against, say, Masters or even normal mental illness. Fear and paranoia go a long way. I know parahumans have existed your entire life, but for most people in charge – the judges, the politicians, and so on – they are still a new phenomenon that popped up in the middle of their lives. It's still strange and scary to them," Dragon said. "Nilbog has been untouchable for the past decade. Every PRT mission to find or kill him has failed disastrously. He might be content with his little kingdom for now, but if he gets aggressive and attempts to expand again, the government has not ruled out the nuclear option. That's how afraid of him they are, and they are very keen to prevent another threat like him from rising again."

"Duly noted," I said. "But I'm not going to kill anyone with the bots I make."

"You seem like a good person. I'm just giving you a heads-up. Nanobots were a science-fiction doomsday scenario not too long ago, and some people may see that when they learn about you. Even for myself, I have to get approval from dozens of different authorities for what I produce in my factories, and even then they subject me to more surprise inspections than anyone else."

"Thanks for letting me know," I told her. Funnily enough, Dragon had never actually told me to stop, only to not scare people with my powers. Was she trying to imply something here?

"Now, on to actual Tinkering. Have you tried a nanofilament or a polarized graphene mesh to improve the crystal purity?" Dragon asked.

"I have no idea what either of those are," I said.

"Well, let me show you a few things I've been experimenting with," Dragon said with a grin.

* * *

I was certain the new designs and suggestions from Dragon would be of major help, even though I could only see a few immediate benefits. Maybe that was just my Tinkering instincts itching to be put to use. To be honest, I wasn't too sure and I couldn't explain it in concrete terms, I was just giddy at the single largest leap in design improvements I'd had in weeks. Even with the suggestions, it was still a game of trial-and-error and multiple rounds of refinement, for both of us.

Lisa was getting a little stir-crazy as I experimented with the new designs for Dr. Crissom and materials that Dragon had introduced. She wanted to take down Coil earlier so she wasn't trapped and hiding in fear, but I still hadn't seen anyone matching his description go in, or out, of any of his bases. There was some movement by the mercenaries, but currently they seemed to be preparing, but not acting yet. Neither of us could figure out what, unless Coil himself could predict our attempt to take him down. I mean, she _did_ figure out that he had a Thinker power capable of making the "right" choice, but without knowing exactly how it worked

In the meantime, Lisa was mainly stuck inside my house - she refused to leave or go anywhere without either me or bots watching every nook and cranny in a five-block radius. I also noticed she was staying away from windows. I would have called her paranoid if it weren't for the fact that Coil had tried to kill her. Not that she could really go anywhere without the press, and therefore Coil, knowing. Hell, he probably had a few mercenaries disguised as reporters. While the number of reporters swarming my house had died down, there were still a few who tried at the hospital, and the occasional one who tried at my house. However, the news story was dying down anyway, and people were losing interest.

"Lisa… I'm seeing movement. Guy in a black costume. Tall, skinny, white snake thing on the front. He just came out of an armored car and went straight for the secure area of the main base.

Lisa's head snapped towards me in an instant. "This is it. That bastard's going down! Quick, check if there's anyone in position for a counterattack or something. Anything in the neighbourhood?"

I shook my head. I'd kept a hundred brains dedicated specifically to a four-block radius plus the hill near around my house to cover any thugs, snipers, or capes looking to pounce on Lisa. I hadn't noticed anything in particular. Even if they showed up, I had enough bots for _three_ copies of Abyssal to handle a multi-pronged attack on my home. "We're safe for now. Let me get my bots into position," I said. "And an alibi for myself. I'm going to volunteer at the hospital for a bit."

While more and more of my bots started seeping into Coil's bases, I ran to the bus stop. She quickly sent a few texts to Vicky while I gathered more bots towards that area of the city.

I got a text from Vicky just as I stepped on to the bus. _Hey ur friend Lisa says she wants to take down a big villain, she legit?_

I texted her back. _Yeah. She's been working with Abyssal to find him._

_Gonna need bkup. But mom might not want to work w Abyssal. PRT says they want him_

That surprised me. Abyssal hadn't been declared a villain or anything, as far as I was aware. I knew there was a notice out and request for questioning, which I mostly ignored. _Really? They still call him a rogue. They just want him for questioning._

_Yeah, that's mom. Wait, gonna conf chat_

I got a new call now for a conference-video chat. I didn't even know my phone could do that. Lisa and Vicky joined in first, but then Crystal and Eric also joined on a single screen. Along with Mrs. Pelham. Looks like most of the Pelhams might have been on-board. I decided to move to the back of the bus to get a little more privacy. I turned the volume down to nothing and just listened from Lisa's end at home through my bots.

Mrs. Pelham put the brakes on everything. "Okay, before you kids rush in and do anything crazy, do you have any actual evidence of a crime in progress?"

I paused. Technically, we didn't. I glanced at Lisa, urging her to come up with an excuse.

"He's got a secret base, and he's in there right now," Lisa insisted. "I've been working with Abyssal to find it, and he's got mercenaries…"

Mrs. Pelham crossed her arms and shook her head. "Sorry, but mercenaries are actually legal. They may get a shady rap, but paramilitary organizations can be hired for anything from security duty to training exercises to citizen policing. Having mercenaries on hand isn't a crime unless you've witnessed them doing something illegal. In fact, independent hero teams like New Wave itself falls under similar laws."

"So we can't even hit him at his secret base unless… Ahhrg! But this is the perfect time! Abyssal told me he just saw him go inside," Lisa growled angrily. I suspect her anger was more directed at herself than Mrs. Pelham, though. Probably for such a huge miscalculation. Maybe she should have relied on Abyssal alone instead of bringing the rest of New Wave into the mix.

"On that note, having a secret base isn't illegal either, unless it violates building codes. But either way, that doesn't justify a violent raid. Just a call to city hall about the violation. Again, we can't just go trespassing on to private property unless we see a crime in progress."

"What if they have illegal Tinkertech weapons? And they have uniforms for impersonating the PRT?"

"Inside the secret base? Now that's some hard evidence. But can you see it from a public location, like the sidewalk? The main issue is that, if you have to break the law – by trespassing – before you even witness something criminal, then you've basically invalidated the evidence you find afterwards. Not to mention the fact that you've now committed a crime yourself. As far as the uniforms go… some people have managed to get away with saying they were merely fans who wanted realistic memorabilia. For roleplay. As long as they aren't using them to actually impersonate an officer, then there's no crime."

"This stupid hero thing is so much more annoying than I thought it would be," Lisa grumbled.

"Tell me about it," Vicky agreed.

"How do you know all this anyway?" Crystal asked.

"Abyssal's been doing some scouting for me," Lisa answered quickly. "He's been able to see mercenaries with a lot of Tinkertech guns, fake PRT uniforms, even a fake PRT armored truck. He's used these mercenaries to threaten my life, and many others…"

"And you trust him with this information? He's not just… playing you or something? You sure he isn't a hired cape himself?" Crystal added.

"I'd trust him with my life," Lisa said firmly.

"Damnit, why can't we just punch the bastard out? It's obviously a criminal, who the hell else builds secret bases with guns and stuff?" Vicky complained.

"People just blame things on Coil. He's like a bogeyman. Almost everything about him is just rumours. Lisa's word is all we got," Crystal pointed out.

"If you have all this evidence, why not just send it to the PRT? They could get a warrant and raid the place themselves," Mrs. Pelham suggested. "They certainly wouldn't take kindly to people impersonating them."

"Coil's got access to the PRT. A combination of moles and hacking. He'd see the report and have everything cleared out of the location before the warrant gets signed," Lisa explained again.

I was listening quietly this whole time, all while I noticed Assault and Battery patrolling vaguely the area of one of Coil's bases. I got an idea. Probably a bad idea.

"Um, just hypothetically speaking, what would happen if you witness a crime in progress, but when you pursue, you come across an even bigger crime? Like, you see a burglar breaking into a building. Then when you chase him, you find out the building's like, a Merchant meth lab or something. What would happen then?" I asked Lady Photon.

Lady Photon sighed. "I seriously hope you aren't trying to convince some poor chump into breaking the law for you."

"I'm not doing anything, I'm headed to the hospital right now. Just asking," I said.

"But legally speaking…" Lisa said. I suspected she already knew the answer, given the way she was glancing at me and trying to suppress her giddy smile. It was probably for the benefit of the rest of New Wave.

"Legally we would still have to arrest the person who initiated the crime, but it also means we had a reasonable justification for entering the property, so it's… less messy. Please don't tell me you're not going to tell your friend to turn vigilante and break more laws for this. We're trying NOT to let the city descend into anarchy."

Good enough for me. Lisa caught on to my thoughts even though I was trying to control my expressions on video chat.

"Oh no, I wouldn't do such a thing. But hypothetically, if any of you feel like going out for a patrol in the next half-hour, there may be a case of… vandalism around the 2500 block of Birch Avenue."

"By Abyssal?" Eric asked with a sarcastic snort.

"I can neither confirm nor deny."

Vicky had already dropped her phone to get changed.

Mrs. Pelham sighed and rubbed her forehead.

* * *

**Author's Note**: A tiny bit late. The week has gotten busy for me. And I've been playing through FFXII again. It's even better than I remembered. At least, the remastered version is.


	33. Exposure 3

Exposure 3

"Glory Girl, I am telling your mother about this." Lady Photon met up with her niece in the air at the intersection that Lisa had indicated. Her kids followed behind, but apparently husband was busy with other things.

"Sure, but wait until _after_ I bust up a supervillain's base," she said while grinning like a maniac. She had a whole lot of pent-up energy, surprisingly, even after the Endbringer recovery effort. I suppose she had the urge to fight _something_ instead of just doing search and rescue. Something that her aunt and cousin could do against Behemoth but not her. She was loathe to admit her jealousy but was being more competitive with Laserdream than normal.

Well, she would get the chance to show up her cousin now. This was Coil's biggest base I could see, so this was where I wanted to draw New Wave's backup. Also, there was at minimum some Tinkertech guns inside for them to find. The other bases were more barebones in comparison. Not only was I confident some nanobots without Abyssal could take them on, there wasn't as much convincing physical evidence in them. Those smaller bases also didn't have the weird force field that disrupted my control. I actually _needed_ New Wave at this one to actually sweep the areas I couldn't.

I formed up Abyssal outside and began the attack. It was a construction site, but construction had been going _extremely_ slowly. Not that I truly understood exactly how the industry went, but I recalled this place being an empty lot for years and it still looked like it had barely started. There was an underground parking garage that was done, but the upper floors of the building were barely started. Very few people were actually working there; I assumed they were acting more as lookouts for Coil than actual construction workers.

I had Abyssal make a lot of noise, with no regard to being particularly efficient or stealthy. Instead of forming him inside the parking area, I made him appear from a dark, shadowed corner by a large stack of equipment. He stepped out with swords drawn, drawing as much attention as he could. I watched as some of the workers froze, some fled in fear. It was most interesting watching the ones who responded… differently.

Abyssal mostly ignored them for now, and instead did a little vandalism all the way down to the bottom floor to expose the hidden door. I mean, I could have carved through almost silently by eroding through the material at the microscopic level, but I preferred to give it some nice strong whacks. That sent concrete debris flying and huge marks on the wall. Easy to find the disturbance, and it did get me through the wall almost as quickly.

Some of those workers followed him, shouting at him from a distance. I still wasn't sure if they were just crazy or disguised mercenaries. What I was sure was that inside the base, there were a lot of un-disguised mercenaries gearing up for a fight.

I wasn't going to let my loud and inefficient methods give them an advantage, though. Inside the base, I kept my bots operating discreetly, primarily focused on sabotaging the Tinkertech rifles and silencing alarms. Bots crept through the armory, creeping into all the most dangerous-looking weapons I could see. I didn't want anyone on my team getting shot by some weird laser they didn't understand. They did keep regular guns as sidearms. Those were even easier for me to disable from experience alone.

As for the alarms, I didn't have time to trace every wire, but there was an intercom and speaker system throughout the base. It was easy enough just to snip the wires for every speaker. The emergency lights were a little trickier, with their internal battery systems but nothing too complex there, either.

My teammates didn't respond to the noise Abyssal was making right away – I guess they assumed the noises and shouting coming from the construction site were, well, just construction noises. After a few more minutes of patrolling around though, Glory Girl finally took notice and decided to investigate closer. I guess I, or Lisa, should have been more clear about secret bases. She was looking at all the _complete_ buildings expecting something weird going on inside, not that a secret base would be in use before it was even finished being built.

Lo and behold, I eavesdropped the foreman radioing something that sounded much more military-like than I would expect from a construction site. Glory Girl's arrival only solidified their roles as mercenaries and not construction workers. They reached for a locked box under a desk, only to find a gun I had previously disabled. No luck for you today, mister.

"Hey! This is a construction zone! Quit flying around here!" the man shouted at Glory Girl while hiding the gun under his safety vest.

"Doesn't look like a whole lotta construction going on here," Glory Girl countered. "Sounds like there's a crime in progress. Let me check it out."

"Yeah, I guess so. There was a weird guy who ran downstairs. Go ahead and take a look," the man said.

Glory Girl looked at him funny, but then proceeded fly down. "Auntie, there's something happening down there, I'm checking it out," she said into her radio.

"I'm calling in the Protectorate," Lady Photon replied. "Secret base or not, this is still trespassing and vandalism. We're not going in there without Protectorate support. Glory Girl, are you listening to me?"

Maybe we got lucky, but it seemed like the foreman guy hadn't noticed the other New Wave members, since they had spread out in a search pattern. The foreman must have thought Glory Girl was alone, and when she turned her back, he pulled the gun and pulled the trigger.

_Click_.

There was too much ambient background noise for Glory Girl to hear the noise.

I jabbed the guy in the calf with a spike made of bots, making him shout involuntarily.

"Huh? Hey, what's… where'd you get that gun?" Glory Girl shouted as she noticed the broken firearm. She quickly tackled him. "Everyone, come to the construction site! Definitely something weird going on! This guy had a gun!" She seemed more giddy than scared at the idea of nearly being shot. She was really amping up for a fight.

I didn't make Abyssal stop. My eyes inside the base told me there was movement. A lot of movement. Even with most of the speakers and emergency lights cut off, they obviously had several backup methods for communication. The mercenaries were scrambling. I kept watch on all the exits as I could find to make sure nobody got away.

Assault and Battery had received the message from the Protectorate, and they were still patrolling the general area. They had progressed further down the street but were still the closest Protectorate members to respond. I just had to make sure that Abyssal actually opened up and revealed the bigger criminal inside the base before the Protectorate members tried to arrest him.

To do that, I switched to a more efficient method of actually cutting through the doors. It was made of reinforced steel, strong enough to stop a speeding tank from ramming through, and probably a lot of heavy firepower. Still, it was no problem for my bots; it just took time.

Glory Girl flew down for a closer look.

"GG! Don't get too close! We don't know what's down there! Shielder, back her up! Laserdream, we're keeping long-distance watch to cover the area. Protectorate backup will be here in only a few minutes."

Still, she had to disappear out of direct sight from Lady Photon, since the actual entrance was down at the bottom of the nearly-complete underground parking lot. I'd probably have to bring that up somehow at the next New Wave meeting… tsk tsk. At least I knew she would be safe.

As she flew down underground, I finally managed to break through the door completely. It was around that time that Assault and Battery met up with Lady Photon. I didn't wait for them or open up the door completely. As soon as I had a slit open for Abyssal, I had the bots pour through the gap and reassemble on the inside.

The area Abyssal was in had several armoured vehicles inside, most of them with the PRT logo emblazoned on the side. It was a very good-looking fake. Heck, calling it a fake might not be accurate, it was probably the exact same vehicle built to the exact same specifications. I hoped that the PRT wasn't in the habit of misplacing eight tons of steel on a regular basis. To be safe, though, I punched through the tires and cut the fuel lines with Abyssal so they couldn't use them.

The mercs had already armed themselves. It was actually pretty impressive, all things considered, to go from low alert to fully armed and ready within minutes, even with the alarm system broken. They were clearly professionals of a higher caliber. They had already taken the heavy weapons from the armory and began doing other things with the computers. Thank goodness I had already sabotaged them beforehand.

At all the other bases, it was a similar story. They must have gotten the word out somehow, since _all_ of them were on alert now. I did my best not to leave a single trace at the other bases, but they were clearly responding to the main base's attack. Though they would find it pretty hard with weapons sabotaged and all the cars in their garage disabled. No need to waste time actually fighting them if they had no way to get across the city anyway.

Abyssal proceeded onwards, increasing the number of bots flowing through the air vents before hacking through the next door. Just before he managed to break through that door, the other bots swarmed in through the ventilation, blinding, tripping, and throwing off their aim. Of those that managed to pull the trigger properly, only one in ten actually fired something, while a quarter of them started sparking and fizzing dangerously in their hands.

The ones that did manage to land a hit on Abyssal, though, did some significant damage. They burned through the bots, superheating them instantly. I didn't know if Glory Girl or Shielder's force fields could stop laser energy. It was better that Abyssal took the hit instead of them. The few that had malfunctioning guns tossed them away quickly and switched to their sidearms, but regular bullets had no effect on him.

Abyssal rushed forward with no regard to the damage being dealt to his body. I had more bots in reserve. I opted to slam through the groups of mercenaries for quick takedowns through sheer speed and weight. I disabled the rest of the weapons and used the bots to hold down the mercenaries like they were encased in concrete. I couldn't completely destroy the guns; I needed to leave evidence for the PRT.

The Protectorate capes had received the quick summary from Lady Photon, and they were following Glory Girl and Shielder into the parking lot.

"Are we going in?" Shielder asked his cousin.

"Hell yeah!" She rushed up to the slit that Abyssal had opened up, gripped it hard, and tore the whole thing off in a steady strong pull. The empty parking garage echoed with the sound of shredding metal and shattering concrete. The others managed to catch up to her as she was tossing the mangled door off to the side.

Assault caught up first. When he got to the secret parking area, he had to stop and look at the PRT trucks. "Puppy? Did we go to the wrong parking lot, or…?"

"Assault, don't call me that on the job. Secondly… I'm going to call this in," Battery said.

Meanwhile, I had Abyssal rampage deeper into the base, forcing them to split their attention. Every locked door, I smashed open. I disabled each mercenary as I went, disarming them and tossing them into the hallway. I sent some additional bots into their bloodstream to knock them unconscious or even numb some of their nerves for some temporary paralysis. Sometimes they managed to get a shot off, to no avail. Others lay in wait around corners only to collapse before Abyssal even reached them.

At the sound of gunfire, Shielder immediately went to the front and created a barrier wide enough to cover the group. It wasn't really necessary, though. The mercenaries near them were all down, and for the ones still fighting, none of the shots were actually pointed towards the heroes. Abyssal was continuing to work his way further into the base.

Shielder and Glory Girl took point. "Damnit, leave some for me…" she muttered after finding only unconscious mercenaries on the ground. She picked up a bit of speed to try to catch up to Abyssal.

"No rushing," Lady Photon said. "Keep together and watch our flanks." The heroes moved a little faster than before but cautiously. Abyssal had to stop to work on the next reinforced door, which let them catch up. The damn base was sectioned off with bulkheads, each closing off as they retreated further and further in. Emergency sealing mechanisms limited the number of bots in each sector, so I still had to bust through before putting up a real fight. I had enough to observe what was there, though.

What surprised me was that they didn't seem to be gearing up for a last stand. They were retreating further, deeper into the base that was protected by that security field. When Glory Girl arrived, she gleefully asked, "Hey, buddy! Need some help with that?"

She flew up to the door. She reared a fist back and throw a massive, full-body haymaker at the door. The entire building seemed to shake as the reinforced door, already damaged by Abyssal, dented and blew off its hinges.

However, the rumbling didn't stop. In fact, there was a larger explosion and shaking, followed by a blast of air pressure that knocked all the non-fliers off their feet.

Glory Girl turned to the others. "That wasn't me."

"Yeah, well, we gotta find out who it _was_," Assault said. "Let's go."

Damnit. I had been looking for pre-made escape tunnels, but I hadn't found any with my bots. I hadn't expected them to use the explosives to literally blow a hole through the floor to _create_ an on-demand escape route. People were dropping down into the city's storm drains. I couldn't see where the hole was due to that disruption field, but the few bots I had in the sewers found some familiar-looking mercenaries running away with Coil.

I probably could have covered it in better detail during the planning phase, but the bots I had in the sewers had been washed away while I was in Spain. I was more concerned with covering the visible surface of the city where criminals normally hung out. While I had enough in the sewers to see and scout, it wasn't enough to stop them right away. The good news, though, was that I had enough bots _outside_ to swarm into the sewers to catch them on short notice.

While the heroes picked up the pace and rushed further ahead to investigate the explosion, bots flooded the storm drains.

* * *

I got a phone call from Lisa. At the hospital, I excused myself and headed to a bathroom. "Hey Lisa, what's up?" I asked.

"_Can you let me know what's happening?"_

"A few mercs escaped. But eight of them have been cuffed, Assault and Battery are taking stock of illegal Tinkertech weapons and the fake PRT gear. I'm rounding up the ones who escaped. I think it's going to be a pretty clean op overall."

Lisa breathed a sigh of relief. _"Is that everything? No Coil?"_

"He either escaped into the sewers or he's behind that area my bots can't enter. The heroes should be in there soon. I'll catch up to the ones in the sewers in a minute."

"_And he's not… retaliating? You're sure there's nobody about to barge into the house?"_ she asked.

"I've disabled the guns and vehicles in his other bases," I told her. "In fact, I see a whole lot of people being very confused. Nothing near my house. You're safe for now."

"_Huh. This almost seems too easy,"_ Lisa said.

* * *

Speaking of which, I needed to focus on the group again. The mercenaries were giving little resistance. It seemed like they were mostly throwing smoke grenades and flashbangs, and were barely using their guns. I suppose they had cottoned on to the fact that their expensive futuristic guns were little more than sparkly toys at the moment. Some of which exploded in their own hands. They were depending more on their well-understood, trusty and low-tech weaponry, most of which still wasn't working very well either.

The communications and computer rooms were utterly destroyed, and it wasn't my fault. It seemed that the escape explosives were tied to some evidence-destroying safeties as well. The armories, unfortunately, were almost utterly destroyed. Some of the sabotaged Tinkertech had _violent_ modes of failure. Thank goodness I didn't tamper with the fire-suppression systems, but it would still take a skilled Tinker to recover any real evidence from them.

The final bulkhead protecting the secured area was brought down by Glory Girl and Laserdream. Because whatever was generating the disruption field was still running, Abyssal still couldn't enter, but I could hear them explore the inner area. He didn't need to be in there anyway, I wanted him to focus on finding the escapees.

"There's a kid in here!" Glory Girl shouted, her voice echoing down the now-empty halls.

Glory Girl came floating out with a little girl in her hands.

"Oh my god, what has the poor girl been through?" Lady Photon said with a gasp.

I couldn't do a full diagnostic on her. Not while all eyes were on her, being carried by Glory Girl. I managed to sneak a few bots in there to take a look.

There were multiple injection sites on both arms, the most recent one was only a few hours ago. The puncture wound still hadn't had enough time to heal. There was bruising on her wrists and ankles, most likely from being tied down. I found some bed sores. Inside the body, I found a small skull fracture that was partly healed. Her blood chemistry was off by a bit, I could quickly tell she was dehydrated. I felt sick just trying to imagine what this little girl went through, and I almost didn't want to try a more thorough scan because I was afraid of what I would end up finding.

"I'm going to get her to Ames," Glory Girl said.

"Wait! We need to bring her to the PRT," Battery said. "There might be additional evidence on her clothes or on her body before it gets contaminated. She'll get the proper medical care, don't worry. We'll phone for Panacea if we need her."

The backup from the PRT – the _real_ PRT – had arrived along with the other emergency services, so Glory Girl dropped her off there. I had to get my bots out of her system then – sure, I didn't have consent back then, and I didn't want the PRT to start investigating why my bots were inside of her already.

Meanwhile, underground, I had enough bots gathered to cut off Coil and his personal escort. With a large mass of bots both in front and behind, they had no possible escape route. In the darkness of the sewers, my bots had an even easier time taking them down. Even their advanced gear, like thermal nightvision goggles didn't help them at all. My bots didn't have body heat, and the light they absorbed simply made it look like endless darkness. They knew something was wrong and took a more defensive position around Coil.

I picked them off easily one by one. Even for professionals, having their teammates silently disappear against an invisible enemy was enough to cause them to panic. When their weapons didn't work, their radios didn't work, and they couldn't see… it would be hard for anyone to keep calm. I yanked them away one by one, knocking them unconscious and muffling their screams as I dragged them away from the group.

Now the debate was whether to drag them out into the street, or back through the sewer to the escape-hole they created. My bots failed about a hundred feet from that hole, so I couldn't toss them back up into the base with Abyssal.

"Hey, I think I figured out what that explosion was," Shielder shouted. I could only hear him because his own voice was echoing through the halls, though I heard it a little in the sewers too. He must have been near the hole.

"Damn, they escaped? Let's get down there, they might not have gone far!" Glory Girl said, having returned already. This time, they were all in agreement.

All of New Wave floated down into the hole. I noticed the faint glow of Shielder's shield ahead as they floated towards the villains I captured. I deliberately rearranged my bots to make them slightly more reflective to catch his attention.

"Everyone, eyes front! I see something!"

Laserdream readied her blasts, fingertips glowing at the ready. It also provided the team a bit of extra light in the dark tunnels.

As they approached, I made sure they could see Abyssal standing over the bodies before dissolving him away. It made them even more cautious, but it was obvious enough what had happened without needing to hang around.

"Well, let's haul these guys up so that the PRT can arrest them properly," Laserdream said.

"Is that… Coil?" asked Lady Photon, upon seeing the man in the black skintight suit. The white snake pattern had been marred by the sewage I dragged him through. Oh well.

"What? Damn, I wanted to punch out the big bad guy!" Glory Girl whined.

"Glory, what did I tell you about restraint? He probably doesn't even have a Brute rating," her aunt chided her.

"It would be a light punch…" she muttered in response.

As New Wave hauled up the would-be escapees, the Protectorate capes were still finding more.

"Let's see… what kind of drug is this? There's a ton of medical shit here. Was he giving it to that little kid?" Assault actually sounded angry for once. "I think it's Chilla. It's a drug made by a chemical Tinker in Mexico working for the cartels. I, uh, used to know a guy who… knew about it."

"Bag it and tag it," Battery said. "The doctors and DEA can figure that one out."

"Hey Battery! Abyssal just took out a whole bunch of mercs!" Laserdream said as she dumped another body down near them. "Gonna have to make two or three trips, there's a lot of them."

"I think this is Coil, too," Glory Girl said, throwing the costumed body down along with another.

"Hey, careful. He could still get out on brutality and assault if he wasn't personally part of the fight. Look at him. He looks like a twig," she pointed out. "If you want someone to fight, go punch one of the mercenaries."

"Please don't," said one of the mercenaries lying on the ground.

"We're out of mercenaries to punch, anyway," Assault said as he pushed another handcuffed mercenary into the hallway and made him sit beside the others. "Got another handcuff? I'm out."

"Forget handcuffs, we're going to run out of paddy wagons," Battery said, shaking her head.

"There's a perfectly good extra van out there," Assault joked.

"That's evidence, not a toy," Battery said.

I let the heroes finish the clean-up. Our job was done. I let Lisa know, too.

"Looks like we've caught Coil, all the mercenaries are caught," I told her. "Quick and clean. The other bases are essentially disabled too. Maybe I'll use Abyssal to lead the PRT to them later."

"Wow. That seemed easy… I never expected things to go so well."

"Well, I gotta go. I expect the little girl's going to arrive at the hospital at some point, and I have actual work to do. Call Glory Girl and talk with her," I said to Lisa. I hung up, having spent more than a reasonable amount of time for a bathroom break. I was expecting an important patient to come in soon.

* * *

I kept waiting at the hospital. I didn't know what evidence took priority over the girl's health. I wasn't expecting to be called myself, since Panacea could probably fix everything herself. Still, if she got pulled out of the hospital to the PRT building, I would end up covering more of the emergency room.

I waited. And waited. Working with Dr. Crissom half-heartedly, my mind was constantly waiting for a phone call for Panacea. I wanted to know what happened to that little girl and how she was doing. I know I technically didn't have the right – she wasn't my patient. But damnit, we had saved her life and I wanted to make sure she was safe.

I was being really bad now, eavesdropping on the receptionist phones with my bots. Eventually, I heard it.

"Hello, Brockton Bay General Hospital, how may I direct your call? PRT? Oh, of course. Yes, certainly. I'll make sure of that, yes."

Finally.

What came over the speakers was not the call I had expected.

"_Code orange. Code orange. All staff, prepare for code orange."_

So… not Panacea. What the hell was it now? Code Orange was for mass casualties. The last time there was a code orange was with Bakuda… surely there wasn't another mass bomber running around, was there? I quickly scanned around with my bots across the entire city. I didn't see anything drastic. Sure, some chunks of the city had yet to return to my view because too many bots had been devoted to taking down Coil's bases. But I hadn't seen anything. It was still just a regular day, as far as anyone else was concerned.

What was the PRT warning the hospital about?

* * *

**Author's Notes**:

Sort-of-spoliers-not-really: designing a clusterfuck is kind of a clusterfuck in and of itself. It's something I've messed around and changed on multiple drafts, and I think I just need to accept the fact that "perfect chaos" is an oxymoron.


	34. Exposure 4

Exposure 4

Lisa began to shout in my room. "Taylor? Taylor, you know it wasn't me, right? Shit shit shit how many copies of Abyssal do you have here? Fuck!" She was scrambling, grabbing my laptop and a few other things as she rushed downstairs, looking frantically between the front door, back door, and basement.

Since nobody else was home at the time, I didn't mind talking to her directly through my bots.

"**What's the problem?**" I asked. Oops, that came out too much like Abyssal's voice. I hadn't bothered practicing mimicking my own voice properly though my bots.

Lisa jumped at my – Abyssal's – voice. "Whaaa! Oh, shit, thank goodness it's you. Haven't you been watching the news?"

"**I'm at work, Lisa. I'm too busy to be watching TV. Nothing happening in the streets right now.**"

"Well there will be," Lisa said. "The Empire got doxxed."

"**What does that mean?"**

"All their identities, addresses and other info just got released."

"**Oh fuck."**

"Yeah, I bet it was Coil. And he pinned it on me!"

"**Oh fucker."**

"That's not even the half of it. Kaiser is the CEO of Medhall. Purity is his ex-wife. Both of them are going to lose custody of their kids, and I bet neither's gonna be happy."

I knew Abyssal was tough and practically endless. My bots could take on and beat almost all of them. Purity, though, was a powerful flying Blaster. I didn't have a way to send my bots that high up, nor did I have a perfect defense against her blaster shots. And when it came to attrition, I didn't know if Purity had limits. My limits were huge, but not infinite.

Fuck.

"**Keep hidden. Not many people know where you are right now. I can protect you here.**"

"Taylor? I'm going to contact Dragon using your laptop and email."

"**What? I thought you were trying to avoid her.**"

"Yeah, well, best of a shitty situation. She's the best digital detective I can call right now."

"**Keep me updated… looks like the Empire's actually starting to move.**"

* * *

It took me a few minutes to figure out exactly what had happened. It started as a PHO post from Tattletale's account. Even though the post had been taken down by the moderators quickly, the information had been posted at many other, less legitimate sites as well and forwarded to news agencies. News talking _about_ that information were all the rage on the forums, . Even though the information itself was disallowed, everyone "knew" it had come from Tattletale and where else on the internet they could go searching for it. Just about anyone who had been on the internet in the past hour would have come across it. The news spread like gasoline-enhanced wildfire.

On that note, the online postings were just the tip of the iceberg. Each local news agency had been sent the information directly.

The Empire 88 was taking to the streets. Certainly, the low-level lowlife gangsters weren't affected by the news directly. Instead, they had little to lose and the gang was all they had. To them, an attack on the gang was an attack against them personally. Not that any of them were named personally in those documents – they weren't important enough. But the Empire was important enough to them, and they were ready to lash out.

Then there were other people, the so-called "smart Nazis." The ones who supported the Empire because they were racist assholes, but they did it in secret because they knew they could lose their jobs or livelihoods if they were found out. And yes, there were lots of them listed in the documents.

God damn, my _dad_ was at work, confronting one of the guys at there. It was someone from the union he had brought along when he got a new job with Fortress. A guy dad trusted and had gone out of his way to help was a Nazi. Fuck. Many other worksites across the city had ground to a halt when it was announced that several of their employees – or managers – were racist gang members.

But the big news was, of course the capes. Max Anders, the CEO of Medhall? I don't think there was a richer person in Brockton Bay. Talk about bombshells. There were already conspiracy theories that the chief of police, or the mayor, had been paid off to allow the Empire to keep operating with minimal punishment. Heck, even I was tempted to believe it, given how easily the Empire members regularly flaunted their membership without fear.

But the fact that the CEO of the biggest corporation in the bay was behind the Empire? Many of their upper management were also Empire capes, too. It was hard to see Medhall as nothing but an Empire front, regardless of what medical technology they actually sold legitimately.

The good thing was that, right now, they were too busy trying to solve their un-masked persona problems to come out on the streets to rampage as capes. The others, the street scum, the career criminals – they were out in force. There was someone who had dealt the Empire a blow, and they wanted to fight back. Even though they had no idea who had actually wronged them or where they were, they wanted revenge.

And when hundreds of people wanted violence, and they didn't know where to direct that violence? Lack of a target never stopped anyone who really wanted to smash things.

The Protectorate was scrambling. The BBPD were scrambling. New Wave was scrambling, too. Brandish was calling people while she was at work at her law firm. Lady Photon and the group who hit Coil were with the Protectorate, and had been sent out immediately as the news hit. The rest of the family was getting pulled in as well. Except for Panacea and me. We were best where we already were.

I needed to bring Abyssal out to stop them. But I didn't have enough bots to do everything. There was too much happening in too many places. For a situation like this, I didn't care if I had to make multiple copies of Abyssal. So I'd have to reveal some more of his abilities, that was a small price to pay to keep my friends and family safe. The problem was that there was _so much_. My dad was at work, in the Docks. Amy and I were in the hospital. Lisa was at home. One Abyssal alone wouldn't guarantee a win against one of the Empire capes, and I needed massive numbers of support bots hiding in the area to "help" his fight.

_Jeez, just calm down and think about it properly_, one of my brains said to me.

_Thank goodness we don't have hormones,_ said another.

Okay. Fine. Hospital… probably still under a de-facto truce. The Empire had no beef with the actual hospital, except for that doctor and a few nurses that was named on the list. Even some people who made a career of helping others were racist. Ugh. Anyway, I didn't need a massive number of bots at the hospital. Likewise, my dad looked like he was handling things fine. Most of the other dockworkers were on his side and the one guy that was singled out was playing the denial card. There was no reason for the Empire to specifically target my dad anyway.

That left Lisa. How many of them would want to kill her? I think it ranged somewhere from "most of them" to "all of them."

I would have to send even more bots to keep her safe. I had been prepared to keep her safe from Coil's mercs, maybe a cape or two, but I hadn't expected to have to fight the single biggest team of capes in the city all at once. I still needed enough left in the streets across the entire city so that I could see them coming, but I would need maybe… ten copies of him in my neighbourhood just in case.

* * *

I checked in on Lisa.

"I know it was my account, but it must have come from a different IP address!" Lisa exclaimed. "You've got the ability to track that!"

"_The address is registered to a home under one Lisa Wilbourn_," Dragon answered.

"I abandoned that place two weeks ago!" Lisa exclaimed.

"_True, there was a fire. And you were caught on video entering Taylor's home a few days ago,"_ Dragon replied. _"The evidence is circumstantial, and the source could be spoofed. And I can prove you were here the whole time, but these things can be automated easily. Someone went through a lot of trouble to pin it on you."_

"Of course he did, he wants me dead!" Lisa replied.

As aggravating and difficult it was for Lisa to work with Dragon, at least she wasn't dead. I kept more careful watch of the area around my house, looking for any suspicious vehicles or people.

I saw one person I'd seen before. Black motorcycle leathers and a skull-themed helmet. Grue. What the hell was he doing here?

He was definitely walking towards my house. I'd never seen him in the neighbourhood before, so Lisa was certainly his target. Why was he there? I tried to see who else he was working with. The Undersiders had been disbanded, and I hadn't seen any evidence of Bitch or Regent in the city since. But he didn't seem like the type to be working alone.

Some of my bots in the street had been depressed and shifted like they had been stepped on. Funny, I don't recall anyone walking on them.

Dragon already knew about Abyssal, and the fact that I could extend my range with him, so I had no problem warning Lisa quickly.

"**Cape incoming. Looks like Grue. I'll stop him."**

Just in case he had backup, I sent an extra-thick layer of bots around Lisa's body to form armour. I also had a few extra enter her bloodstream, just in case there were some more insidious methods like poison or something. I couldn't counter everything, but I would be prepared for everything they _could_ throw at her. After all, the Empire had Fog, who choked people out, right?

"_Oh, is that you, Eunoia? So you were listening in. Lisa, what's happening to your face?"_

"What? Oh, that's just Eunoia providing me with nanobot armour. Grue's probably the most reasonable member of the Undersiders – he wouldn't be doing this unless there was a bigger payout than just money," Lisa said.

"_That is strange, my data has never shown Grue to ally with the Empire. And aside from Bakuda, he has never participated in kidnapping or assassination,"_ Dragon said.

"That's because he's black, and he wants to stay small-time," Tattletale said. "Like I've been telling you, the entire Empire thing is just a distraction. He's probably still working for Coil. Or got re-hired."

"_Your description of the events are looking more and more likely. Unfortunately, I don't have authorization to deploy my combat drones to assist. I can only give you some digital support, and provide evidence in your defense if it comes to it."_

"That's all I expect anyway," Lisa said. "You're recording this video, right?"

"_Correct_."

Meanwhile, several blocks away, I formed up a copy of Abyssal to stand in Grue's way.

He stopped.

"Look, buddy, I don't want to fight. But I gotta do this, you understand? Nobody needs to get hurt," Grue said. "My beef ain't with you. Just… let me get Tattletale."

Yeah, I didn't believe him. Abyssal drew both his swords. I made it clear to Grue that I was letting him run, but he wasn't getting past. He'd saved my life before and helped against Bakuda, so I didn't really want to kill him or anything. But if he was going to invade my home and kill my friend, I wouldn't hold back.

Grue tried anyway. He spread out his smoke, hoping to blind Abyssal like he would with anyone else. Shame he didn't understand how Abyssal actually worked. He disappeared into the smoke, but I could feel his footsteps. He tried to dodge around by going into the middle of the street and scampering behind some parked cars, but Abyssal was quicker. He nearly ran into the massive sword that Abyssal slammed down in front of him, and then fell into a roll when the rest of Abyssal charged at him.

* * *

Speaking of footsteps, some more near my home – when had that happened? I checked again, but didn't notice anyone. I checked a wider radius, just in case there was a teleporter or something. The only one I knew of for certain in town was Oni Lee, but he didn't leave his characteristic clones and ash. And there was the fact that I could see him fighting at the Medhall building.

Yep, the ABB had mounted a full-on assault on Medhall. When the CEO of a corporation was outed as the leader of a white-supremacist group, the board of directors probably would have tried to deny any involvement. Claim it was something he did on his personal time, not to be associated with the company, and leave him to fend for himself.

But when multiple members of the Empire 88 were _also_ on the board of directors, as well as many in cushy management positions throughout the company… well, then it became harder to deny. Medhall was now looking like a full-on white-supremacist corporation. I didn't check how it was doing on the stock market but "nosedive" would be a pretty good guess.

Lung decided to treat this like any other gang war. After all, when you found a massive, vulnerable cache of resources from a rival gang, why not attack it and destroy it? Especially when they were in no position to fight back?

With so many members of the Empire 88, including the CEO, as part of this corporation, it wasn't unreasonable to call Medhall nothing more than a front for gang activity. With annual revenue in the hundreds of millions, one could even say it was the most lucrative Empire resource.

Of course, Medhall did legitimate work as well. And it formed a significant part of Brockton Bay's economy. And thus, the majority of both the PRT and police were sent here as opposed to elsewhere. The ABB's two core capes were enough of a threat, and it looked like they had recruited another recently. Another teleporter, or at least, a semi-teleporter. Almost the opposite of Oni Lee, I saw this cape create a translucent clone _first_, and then teleported to the clone afterwards. I'd have to do more research later, but they didn't seem to be any more deadly than Oni Lee.

The question was, should I help them? It would suck up even more of my bots, and I knew that Lung could reach temperatures that could still incinerate my bots. The police were already evacuating the building. Throwing Abyssal into the mix would only cause confusion and slow things down. What was more… I honestly didn't know if I would end up helping an Empire member or not. The kind of paranoia and distrust that the information had caused was getting to me, too.

I decided not to. There were enough heroes in the area already. I would have to concentrate on the other parts of town, where major clashes were happening that the authorities were ignoring for now. Places like my neighbourhood.

* * *

Back with Grue, he was now trying to outrun Abyssal. To his credit, he must have trained pretty hard because he was quick. But not quick enough for Abyssal. Again, his smoke couldn't help him evade Abyssal because I was tracking him by his footsteps. Abyssal, with massive stride length and non-human musculature, caught up easily. I grabbed him so he couldn't escape, to make things clear. I lifted him out of his own smoke and threw him away from my house. He tumbled harshly on the pavement, but I don't think he broke any bones. A combination of his training, general fitness, and motorcycle gear, I guess. Still, it wasn't comfortable for him, and I didn't mean it to be. He needed to get the message. He wasn't getting past.

Then a giant monstrous animal charged at Abyssal out of nowhere.

At first I thought it had been Bitch, even though I _knew_ she had left the city with the dogs she had. She'd gone completely out of my range and into the wilderness. To be frank, I didn't think she would ever come back either, since city life and _people_ just weren't her thing.

I had to take a closer look at the actual monster before I realized it wasn't a dog. Or an enhanced demon-dog. It was dark, spiky, four-legged, and huge, certainly. But that was where the similarities to Bitch's dogs ended. This thing looked more like a were-cat-monkey than anything. With longer claws and more flexible fingers, it was trying to grapple with Abyssal and hold him down while Grue tried to get up. Where it had come from, I couldn't figure out.

I scanned the streets for anything I could find. There were a crowd of Nazis marching towards my house now; apparently Lisa's location had been leaked to the Empire somehow. Along the way it looked like they had found someone to beat up – a black guy, maybe a teen or early twenties, pushing a white girl in her wheelchair. The girl probably had some kind of condition; despite the commotion she was fast asleep or unconscious.

I knew that racists not only hated other races, but also people of their same race for even associating with someone of another race. They had some dumb name for it, but the important thing was that the disabled white girl was probably at as much risk, if not more so, than the black guy pushing her wheelchair.

Good thing that I had saved more bots for the job.

While one copy of Abyssal wrestled with the massive were-cat, a second continued to deal with Grue, a third popped up to deal with the neo-nazis bearing down upon my home.

"C'mon, the bitch is this way! I saw it on the news, she's hiding out here!"

"Yeah! Who the fuck does she think she is?"

"She's making Brockton worse! Outing the fucking CEO? It's just proof that we're the only ones doing honest work here while the chinks just fuck things up!"

I was rather bemused by the fact that these thugs were calling _themselves_ honest workers while they marched around the street looking to beat up a teenage girl. It wouldn't be hard to deal with them. I had too much on my plate to take them down carefully. If I just wanted to drop them unconscious, each person would take quite a bit of concentration and monitoring to prevent permanent brain damage.

It was easier to just break their arms and legs.

I made Abyssal's swords blunt, then smashed away at the group before they could come close. They scattered, but there were still more coming to join their ranks.

* * *

My neighbourhood wasn't the only place that had Empire members marching, of course. Many of them were advancing on other neighbourhoods, like the little Mexican quarter or "Currytown" where most of the Indian restaurants were clustered (yeah, Brocktonintes weren't above basic stereotypes). There were less people marching into true ABB territory though – Lung was known to be rampaging, and without actual Capes marching with them, Empire members were too cowardly to engage.

They only attacked the places where they didn't expect any resistance.

I had a copy of Abyssal pop up where I could afford to. And not all places were truly undefended; there were some people willing to defend their homes. I saw Aegis at least, flying around all by himself. He was shouting at the Nazis, trying to get their attention. But he didn't have backup – almost all of the Protectorate was still taking on the escalating fight at Medhall. I think he must have been defending his actual home or family.

Or maybe Aegis was being deliberately targeted. His costume did show a tiny amount of skin, and it was obvious he was darker-skinned. Enough for the Empire to discriminate against him.

I decided to give him a bit of backup. After all, most of the PRT and Protectorate were fighting Lung at the Medhall building. While they were trying to stop a dragon from tearing down a tower, it left everyone else to fend for themselves.

Well, not if I could help it. Aegis may have been an idiot who tried to be _friendly_ to Shadow Stalker while she attempted to murder me and Lisa, but the only ones with a case of terminal stupidity were the gangsters. These Nazis were going to get the same treatment as the ones the ones who tried to head to my house.

In the opposite corner, though, were the Asians. They took this opportunity to lash out at just about everyone who was white. Many of them had trouble trusting the police, and they suspected that the racism against them wasn't just from the Empire, but systemic. And now, when the richest company in town and the biggest donor to the Mayor's campaign as well as police and hospitals turned out to be full of Nazis… well, some of those life frustrations suddenly felt very justified, whether they were true or not. The entire city had been built to oppress them, and the only way to fix it was to tear it all down. Or at least, that was what they were shouting while throwing bricks.

I needed another few copies of Abyssal to scare them off, hopefully. I felt like I would have to fight the entire town at this point. I would definitely be running out of bots if I tried to take on everyone.

* * *

Speaking of which, I still needed more backup at home. So I pulled another large pile of bots out of reserve and had him join against the were-cat monster. Whatever it was, it was a determined fighter. If it was a Changer, they must have been confident in their healing abilities. If it really was an animal, then whoever created probably didn't care if it died. It had more than enough opportunities to run, so I didn't need to go easy on it any more.

The Abyssal fighting the monster was legitimately getting torn apart. But the tearing didn't matter. I had managed to get a few good hits in, and the thing was bleeding. As they said, if it could bleed, it could die. Abyssal was re-forming over and over, and while the monster looked tough, its injuries were permanent and adding up. But I didn't have time to waste. The Abyssal getting ripped to shreds started simply gripping the monster, binding its limbs together and locking it in place. I needed to reinforce the bindings with almost all the bots I had; the thing was way stronger than a normal animal its size should have been. The additional Abyssal came running from behind, though, and with the monster tied down, I managed a full-force stab with the blade as sharp as I could make it.

I bisected the monster and it was _still_ fighting, clawing and biting at anything it could reach. It seemed like it didn't even feel pain or have any sense of self-preservation. Despite its disregard to pain, though, it at least seemed to follow biological laws. It got weaker as it bled out. It wouldn't last much longer. That was another problem taken care of for now.

I hoped there weren't any more capes or reinforcements arriving. For now, though, the Nazis were probably more worried about retreating than reinforcing. With the injuries I had given them, they would probably want to get to the hospital soon. There wouldn't be any ambulances to help them, though. I could see where all of them were.

* * *

Outside the emergency room, ambulance after ambulance was unloading injured people into the ER. Some had fallen on broken glass, some had been hit with a baseball bat, some had just been beat up, and there were a few gunshot wound victims. I knew, given the growing riot across the city, that it was only going to get more crowded as the day went on.

Panacea was definitely being pushed, but I did my best to try to back her up. In fact, I could actually handle most of the cases, since people were showing up with mostly scrapes, scratches, and bruises. I could clean, sterilize, and stitch up most of those issues with the bots – if I had enough of them. I now had to summon even more bots into the hospital because my usual number wasn't enough to handle the workload.

Even worse, the real problem wasn't exactly the injuries people came to the hospital with. It was the injuries they could get while they were _here_. As Brockton General was the most central hospital and closest to the chaos, most people ended up here. Including the Nazis. And Asians. And the black, brown, yellow, pink, or whatever colour you could think of. People who had just been beating each other up a short while ago found themselves sitting across from each other in the triage area.

Yes, the hospital was _supposed_ to be a neutral zone. But that didn't stop people who were too dumb, too reckless, or too angry to care. There were a few fights that started to break out inside the hospital itself. Hospital security had managed to break up the first few flare-ups, but I was afraid they would be overwhelmed soon, too. After all, they weren't exactly trained fighters. They weren't police or PRT. They were basically minimum-wage hired hands who helped handle the occasional drunk or psychotic patient. They worked in teams, normally with the nurses and outnumbering problematic patients four to one. Not the other way around.

I wondered if I needed to bring Abyssal into the _hospital_ now, too. Ugh. Maybe it would make more sense to phone the rest of New Wave? Maybe it could be our team mission to protect the hospital for now. After all, with two of our capes already here, it would make sense for the rest of the team to be here during the time of crisis. Lady Photon had already rallied most of the family and they were patrolling the downtown area outside the hospital. Maybe they needed to be indoors instead of patrolling through the air…

* * *

Speaking of flying high, I could see a police helicopter in the skies above my home, but no police cars. At least there were no flying enemy capes – Purity was nowhere to be seen, thank goodness. Stormtiger was fighting against Lung. Lisa was basically on her own along with my bots, which was not the worst thing that could be happening right now. I was pretty sure I had enough left over to still protect her, especially now that I had Grue taken care of. I grabbed him again, intending to drag him out of the neighbourhood to make my stance clear. His mission was not going to be successful.

Moreover, as the interracial couple fled from the Nazis, they were unfortunately approaching my fight with Grue, and that monster thing. I needed to shut down all three fights quickly.

Suddenly, he disappeared from Abyssal's hand, replaced by my neighbour's scooter.

Grue was suddenly down the street, in my neighbour's driveway. Fuck, he allied with a teleporter? He was already vaulting over the fence, and heading to the open back door.

Wait, when did my back door open? Who opened it?

In the basement, Lisa was still talking with Dragon.

"**Grue's here. Get ready,**" I warned her.

"You couldn't stop him?" Lisa hissed. Yeah, I know, I was disappointed in myself too. But it wasn't as if we had lost or anything. I collected more bots together and formed Abyssal inside the house. Grue's smoke was pouring through, filling the entire main floor. He found his way into the basement easily enough, where I immediately grabbed him. By the neck this time.

"Brian. I thought we had a deal," Lisa said, staring straight at the motorcycle helmet. I forced him to face her. "You weren't supposed to work with Coil again."

Grue struggled with his feet kicking uselessly in the air. "Can't… he's got…"

We both waited for him to finish but he didn't. I wasn't choking him _that_ hard.

"Got what?"

"I needed… job… lawyers," he said.

"You have, like half a mill in cash! I gave you a bonus for leaving! Don't fucking bullshit me about needing more money."

"Not about the cash… proving income," Grue said.

"Why?" Lisa asked, clearly confused.

"Prove… I can raise… a kid?" Grue repeated, sounding confused. Did he not know either?

Lisa stared at him strangely. "You never said you wanted to become a daddy. Kinda young, aren't you? No, wait… that's not right…" I had to admit, the answer seemed strange to me, too.

Suddenly, I felt a knife jab into Lisa's back. My bots responded quickly enough, hardening into plate armor quickly enough that it barely penetrated Lisa's skin. My bots even applied pressure and stopped the bleeding before it started. She jerked from pain, though and whirled around to see a young girl, in a mask, holding a knife.

"Oops," the girl said.

"Aisha! The fuck?" Grue shouted.

"I'm saving your life, you fucking idiot!"

"Go… home!" he grunted out.

"How the hell did YOU manage to trigger?" Lisa snarled at the girl. "Fucking hell, Aisha, you should listen to your brother for once. This isn't cops and robbers any more."

I dropped Grue and lunged at the girl with Abyssal. I aimed to grab her by the torso, but she ducked and scrambled out of the way.

Hey, how did a knife suddenly appear on the ground? It wasn't one of mine. Wait, and why was Grue suddenly free? Why did I drop him again? I _just_ had him completely under control.

Lisa turned around from where she was standing.

"Grue, the only reason I'm not killing you is that you used to be my teammate," Lisa said while advancing on him. The nanobot armour certainly helped her confidence. Abyssal held his position right behind her while Grue backed away. When he hit the far wall, I grabbed him by the leg, dangling him upside-down in front of Lisa.

"_Lisa, you're under attack_," Dragon said through my laptop. Their conversation was still ongoing over video chat.

"That's pretty obvious, Dragon. But I think we have it under control for now," Lisa replied while staring at Grue hanging uselessly.

"_No, what I mean is that there is a Stranger in the room with you. African-American, early teens, holding a knife. You interacted with her fourteen seconds ago,"_ Dragon informed us.

Knife? I checked the knife on the ground that I noticed earlier. It was gone.

I hardened Lisa's body armour even more at Dragon's warning, and once again felt a sharp knife edge against her neck. It rubbed harmlessly across my bots this time.

"Fuck, what the hell does it take to kill this bitch?" the girl exclaimed, suddenly jumping away from Lisa.

"Aisha! You're not supposed to be here! I left you the fucking bank account, now get the hell out of town!"

"And leave you? No fucking way. In case ya didn't notice, you ain't doing so hot, Brian!" she shouted back.

Lisa looked at the girl. She looked back at Grue.

"_Riiight_. I remember now. Brian, I gave you instructions on how to set up a shell company to pay _yourself_ and look like you had a legit job," Lisa said.

"Well apparently Coil doesn't work that way," Grue said. "It's pretty simple. You dead, or me and Aisha both dead. No amount of money is gonna change that deal. Ain't a hard choice. And that's why you SHOULDN'T BE HERE, AISHA!"

"Bullshit! If he's gonna kill me, I got every fucking right to do my part!" Aisha shouted back. She looked at her effectively-useless knife, then at Lisa, then to Grue.

"**LET'S SIMPLIFY,**" I said with Abyssal's voice. This time, I made sure to have extra brains concentrate on the girl's existence. Not the ones nearby. Whatever her Stranger power was, it practically erased her existence from all the brains in my normal control range. I wasn't sure how far her range worked, but at least I knew it didn't work through cameras, on Dragon, who was a few thousand miles away. But just in case, I fully encased her in bots very quickly, and remembered one thing: keep it airtight.

For some reason I had a human-sized cocoon in my basement beside Lisa. I couldn't remember why, but at least two hundred of my brains across the city agreed: keep it sealed, keep it airtight. What was I holding on to? Some kind of weapon? A mega-plague? Weird, but… no reason to start doubting myself now.

"Looks like this isn't going to work out, Brian," Lisa said.

"_Grue, this is a clear case of break-and-enter, and you have just admitted to attempted homicide. There is now no chance for you to ever live a normal life with your sister. Your best bet is to turn yourself in, and possibly give yourself a chance at a plea deal if you have information on your employer,"_ Dragon said. _"By the time you get out of jail, your sister would be a legal adult anyway."_

"My sister? I have a sister?" Grue said, confused.

And that was when I felt, and heard, the thumping from inside the cocoon I had made.

_Keep it sealed_, I reminded myself. Right. _Now_ I could remember the murderous teenager inside there.

Grue lunged at Lisa. "Let Aisha go!" He expertly caught her in a headlock, but I reinforced Lisa's neck again, so that his arm wasn't able to cut off her breathing at all. She was fine. Lisa jabbed her elbow into Grue's stomach, and I enhanced it with the bots' power. He grunted in pain.

I ignored using Abyssal to deal with him, since Lisa had him under control. Instead I moved Abyssal to the cocoon containing the girl, and made a show of crushing the container down. Inside, the girl screamed louder and thrashed helplessly against the sides of the walls.

"NOOO!" Grue screamed. "No! Let her go! Let her go!"

And all of a sudden, my vision in the area went blank. My control faltered. Abyssal fell apart, the cocoon fell apart. Lisa collapsed, as did Grue.

I was trying to make sense of what was happening, but it was like all my brains in the general area were having a seizure. Massive amounts of sensations and data seemed to be flowing through them, more than I could process. More than even the thousands of my brains across the city could handle. It was hard to ignore, but at least I was able to stay conscious. The brains closer to my home were overwhelmed.

I had visions – hallucinations? Memories? Dreams? Of some kind of a monster, fragmented, of sorrow and pain, and listlessness…

And it all snapped back to reality when I regained control. I recovered just long enough to see the girl had also awakened. She was crawling for her brother, who was still unconscious. So was Lisa.

"_Lisa? Abyssal? What happened? Are you there? Can you hear me?"_ Dragon shouted. Her voice sounded fuzzy over the cheap, weak speakers of my laptop. _"Is the Stranger still there? Watch out! There's a Stranger trying to kill Lisa!"_

Stranger trying to kill Lisa. Right. Fuck. I quickly covered her from head to toe in tough, nanobot armour. And none too soon, because I felt something else almost pierce Lisa's chest. I formed Abyssal, attempting to snatch or swing wildly at something I couldn't see and was just barely aware of. Dragon had to keep shouting and reminding me what I was doing.

"_Left! No, she's behind the box!_" Dragon could only guide me when the girl was in sight of the laptop's camera, which unfortunately had a narrow field of view. I continued to feel more stabs, slashes, and spikes on Lisa, but none of them managed to penetrate.

Lisa started to stir. I still couldn't stop the Stranger, but I could at least make things even more difficult for her. Abyssal was basically useless, as he was just swinging blindly and probably doing more damage to my basement than to the Cape. I dissolved him and spread long spikes around, basically turning Lisa into a human porcupine. To add even more, I had more spikes start to spread across the floor and walls around her, repelling any attempts to get into melee range of Lisa.

Grue took stock of what was happening. He saw all the spikes growing. Another Abyssal started to form at the top of the basement stairs as I brought more bots from outside the house inside. He wasn't getting out of this one.

And that was when Lisa got shot in the head.

* * *

**Author's Note:** In my head, I always thought of Aisha's power as a self-contained Fidelius Charm from Harry Potter. Which also makes thinking of how the fidelius charm works really weird besides just shrugging and saying "magic." It basically has to actively scrub everyone's memories of a specific thing.


	35. Exposure 5

Exposure 5

As Lisa's head jerked diagonally, it seemed like everything was happening in slow motion. Or more like I was suddenly paying attention very hard from fifty different perspectives. I watched her body fall and caught it gently with my bots. I could tell exactly where it had penetrated her skull. I knew its size and direction before it even stopped moving. I could catch the bone fragments before they could deal more damage. I was able to stop the bullet with the bots that were already in place in her cranium before it completely obliterated the most critical parts of her brain.

Not that I would ever call someone who got shot in the head lucky, but Lisa probably had a better chance of getting out of this alive than anyone else. It was like being shot, while wearing a helmet, in a neurosurgery suite with the surgeon already there and ready to go. Except better.

My bots were at work immediately, before Lisa had even stopped falling. The bots that I had been using to protect against the Stranger's knife attacks couldn't fully stop the bullet, but they did absorb a lot of energy. Moreover, as the bullet penetrated the skull, they were still strong enough to spread the force across more of the bone. That meant more of the skull got shattered actually, but the bullet slowed down and penetrated less. Bone could heal later. The bots, weaved together to form the armour, just happened to wrap around the bullet as well, preventing it from shattering into deadly fragments.

When the bullet stopped, I was able to extract it immediately without causing any more damage. Bots instantly got to cleaning the wound, stopping the bleeding, preventing infection, clearing out bone fragments. I'd worked on gunshot wound victims before, and even when they had been rushed to the hospital within minutes, those minutes were significant. The blood vessels were easy enough to fix up, but the section of neurons had been utterly obliterated.

What did that part of the brain control? I double checked with a spare brain of my own. It corresponded to part of the right sensorimotor cortex, so maybe Lisa would have difficulty controlling the left side of the body, or seeing things from the left side. It also damaged parts that were often associated with visualization. That is, if Lisa recovered. It was all on me to take care of her right now. I couldn't take her to the hospital.

After all, there was _another_ fight breaking out as both Empire and ABB members were both starting to gather in the ER, along with victims of both. With the entire Empire wanting to kill Lisa, I couldn't take her anywhere public.

I contained the bullet in a clean capsule of bots for evidence later. The thing was clearly Tinkertech, not a typical bullet. Instead of just an aerodynamic chunk of lead and alloys, there were lots of miniature mechanisms in the tip and movable fins on the back. Where had the damn thing come from, anyway? My bots throughout the house told me. It had gone through the outside wall, an inner wall, the floor, and then into the basement before it struck Lisa. Tracing the holes through my home, the damn thing had _curved_ and steered itself into Lisa's head. Thank goodness it had to penetrate so much more of the house; it must have lost enough energy before impact that I actually had a friend left to save.

It was hard to figure out where a curving, steerable bullet came from. It had to have come from the south side of the house, unless it was capable of completely reversing direction. But I hadn't even heard a gunshot with any of my bots in that direction – again, probably Tinkertech with a perfect silencer, or maybe it didn't even use gunpowder in the first place. Where could the gunman have been, though? I had a very wide area covered near my house in bots.

The first thought was that the sniper had been outside my range. A sniper bullet could easily outrange the area that I was watching in close detail. I only vaguely covered areas further out because none of them had a line-of-sight with my house. I hadn't accounted for _target-seeking bullets_.

The police helicopter, maybe? Coil had fake PRT vehicles, it wouldn't be unthinkable that he had a fake police chopper as well. Or maybe it was a real chopper piloted by his moles in the department. But who the hell could snipe someone from a helicopter? Well, potentially anyone could with the weird tinkertech bullet I found.

I'd take care of it later. I needed to make sure Lisa was safe.

Which, of course, left Grue and the Stranger. I'd given Grue enough chances. He may have saved my life before, but actually helping an assassination? He got no more free passes and no more chances to explain himself. They were already running, so I made spikes out of the ground to impale them. I made my entire house a deathtrap of moving spikes and razor blades of nanobots. No more mercy, no more joking around.

Grue spilled out his smoke, which further disrupted my control. The disruption was way more powerful than before – it used to just dull my precision against him and blur my senses, but now I almost completely lost control of the bots. Did his power get stronger somehow? Or had he figured out how to tune it against me specifically? The specifics didn't matter right now as long as he was getting the hell away from Lisa. I sent one last copy of Abyssal after Grue, and I just hoped that the Stranger was running with him. Abyssal chased him with wild, destructive swings of the swords so he wouldn't even think of a second try.

"**Dragon. Lisa's been shot. Need safe place for her. Hospital is dangerous. Options**?" I quickly relayed the situation to Dragon, who was still on video chat.

"_My drones still don't have authorization for support, but the mobile workshop I had sent is sitting just outside the city. I was delaying its arrival due to the riots, but I can send it in immediately. If you need a safe place to keep her, the workshop is heavily armoured and has round-the-clock security systems, even if it is rather conspicuous,"_ she told me.

Clearly people could find Lisa when she was trying to lay low, so there was no security in obscurity at the moment. Better security through thick armour plating and the threat of pissing off the world's greatest Tinker instead. Plus Abyssal standing guard.

"**Thanks. I'll send her with Abyssal**."

"_It's extremely obvious to me now that the girl is being targeted. I'll keep her safe as best I can while I investigate,_" Dragon told me.

* * *

Could I actually fix Lisa's brain? I didn't want her to end up as a vegetable. My bots could emulate my own brain, sure, but that was because I just made an exact copy of myself. The good thing about the brain was that it was remarkably flexible, and sometimes restored itself to nearly full functionality. The problem was that the brain was remarkably flexible. While certain functions could be mapped to general regions of the brain, there was nothing set in stone about individual neurons. Heck, people who had suffered injuries or other issues could re-route pathways around large lesions.

I didn't know if I'd be connecting up Lisa's newly-severed neurons correctly. Actually, I had other problems to solve even before that. My bot-brains were entirely made of bots. I'd never tried to connect a biological brain to my robot brains. My bots got their power supply from each other, connected to the network of bots which was ultimately solar-powered. If I intended to have Lisa heal properly – including all the protective layers of the brain and the skull, I needed my bots to be functionally equivalent to an actual human neuron – including getting its fuel from glucose and oxygen, and keep working without my personal control. I didn't _want_ to Master Lisa.

It was time for some rapid prototyping. I could partly test them in my own brain, but if it came down to it, I could ask Panacea to help before installing them in Lisa.

I dedicated a few hundred brains to the job, enough to leave most of my brains keeping watch on the streets and taking care of Lisa. It would take a few hours of work before I had a suitable candidate, and they would be very long hours indeed.

* * *

Outside my home, I noticed a flying cape up above. Dressed in dark colours, my first thought jumped to Alexandria, but there were too many splashes of red on the costume. Then, suddenly, there was an extremely bright, hot glow in the sky – as bright as a second sun.

It was obvious what was going to happen.

I completely encased Lisa's body in bots to protect her, then squeezed her out a tiny basement window. And not a moment too soon. The glowing orb dropped from the sky and through the roof of my house. I tried to use what bots I had in my home to remove the important things aside from Lisa, but there was no time. It happened too quickly, and I had moved too many of my bots into the basement for Lisa's defense. The fireball dropped on to my home and cut through it like butter.

It immediately seared through the roof. It burned through the wood like it was nothing. As it descended, the rapid heating caused the air to expand so rapidly it blew out the windows. Lisa was only a short distance from the house at the time, and even then I needed to sacrifice multiple layers of bots to shield her from the debris and heat.

Destroyed piping in the house spewed water which immediately turned to steam. Amazingly, that worked to my advantage, as it created a pseudo-fog for me to rush Lisa away. I could already sense Dragon's unusual truck enter the city, so I took Lisa in her direction for safety. I knew a person-sized cocoon scuttling through the streets was weird and conspicuous, but hopefully Abyssal would create enough of a disturbance to divert their attention.

I would probably end up sacrificing an entire copy of Abyssal for this – a thousand pounds worth of bots – but I could always rebuild. In the opposite direction I was taking Lisa, I sent an Abyssal. I had no good way to attack someone flying so high, so Abyssal just grabbed a random rock and threw it.

I missed by a wide margin, but at least I got the cape's attention.

Then the rock fell towards the ground and smashed through a car's windshield. Whoops. If I was just going to take pot shots at her, I needed a projectile that wouldn't annihilate whatever it landed on. The first thing I thought of were bots, of course. I could throw a bot-formed javelin at her, and let it disintegrate when I missed, hurting nothing at all.

And so, I started having Abyssal launch javelins over and over while trying to dodge ultra-hot fireballs. Abyssal's survival was not the issue, of course. It was protecting and hiding Lisa. Thus, I didn't mind putting him in sub-optimal positions or losing massive numbers of bots while the cape used the fireballs both offensively and defensively. I kept up the attack, even as my bot-javelins were being repeatedly incinerated, as long as I could keep her looking the other way.

Meanwhile, my house had burnt down to a crisp, along with my neighbours' homes. The fires were so powerful they incinerated the entire area. All our belongings, our clothes, our furniture, our home… gone. Along with a large reserve of bots, a significant stash of cash… and my mom's flute.

It was gone. All gone.

In a sense, it was a bit freeing. All the extra bots and brains I kept in the area, watching it constantly… now it didn't matter. I could spend more of my abilities to focus on what mattered. Dad. Lisa. Myself. My teammates. Clothes – not a problem for me. Homes – I was guessing either the Pelhams or Dallons could put us up for a few days, or we could just move into a motel or something. Money – I still had multiple smaller stashes elsewhere, and if all else failed, Abyssal could raid some gang stashes. It was okay. We were okay for now.

I focused myself. Dad was fine. He was still at work, away from most of the violence. New Wave was mostly fighting, all of them backed up with Protectorate support. Amy was near me, a little tired, but otherwise fine. I just had to take care of Lisa.

Dragon's arrival at our designated meeting place came quicker than I had expected. No others had tried to intercept or kill Lisa and Abyssal on the way. The cape fighting Abyssal had broken off after the fog cleared. It seemed like she was satisfied with her job of utterly annihilating my house, and didn't stay.

Dragon must have had cameras all around the vehicle. There was no driver – apparently she had a special license for remote driving, or auto-driving. Not surprising for anything made by her company Dracotek. The door opened up automatically – or maybe she had opened it remotely when she recognized us. Either way, I put Lisa inside, with a large helping of extra bots, and then had Abyssal stand guard outside.

"That was quick. I saved a copy of the video as evidence. I can make a basic life-support system here, but I'm afraid this workshop doesn't have advanced medical technology inside," Dragon said through the speakers. Multiple robotic arms inside unfolded and began to construct a simple ECG and other basic vital monitoring devices.

"**I'll take care of it**," I told her through my bots. I dropped the weird bullet on top of a table. "**Bullet. Analysis?**"

"Well, that's interesting. I'll let you know what I find out," Dragon said.

I wouldn't feel that she was safe until the fighting had died down, until Coil and the Empire were both downed for certain. As armored as Dragon's vehicle was, it had no obvious weapons and the Empire had a lot of firepower. I assumed the Empire 88 leak was a deliberate act by Coil to cause chaos so he could escape, but I had kept an eye on him. He had been brought into PRT custody, so if that had been his plan, it didn't work. I'd gone and dismantled all his other bases that I could find, so there was that.

There was probably no way to convince the entire gang that Tattletale hadn't been the one to leak the info, so really the only way to remove that threat to her was to help end the fighting a bit more quickly.

* * *

Everyone from New Wave was out tonight, except for me and Amy. We were both busy at the hospital. A few police officers had been posted here now, along with the ones that brought in detainees for medical treatment. The police presence helped reduce the fighting in the waiting area, which made everything else much more manageable. Still too dangerous to bring Lisa in, especially with the cash bounty against her that the Empire posted.

"Do you ever wish you could be out there, helping?" Amy asked me quietly, when we finally had room to breathe. I was caught off-guard, because Amy didn't usually stop for anything. I had taken care of more patients than she did for once. The nurses were okay with me treating dozens of people at once, as long as their injuries were minor.

"Sort of? You're already helping, Amy," I said. "I mean, the heroes wouldn't be able to do nearly as much without your help."

"I'm asking you," Amy said firmly. "I mean, medicine isn't even your power's specialty."

"Fine. Yeah, I get it. I don't want to be completely stuck here," I said while schooling my features as best I could. "I like the idea of stopping criminals in their tracks before they hurt anyone instead of just fixing up the damage they leave behind. Is that how you feel too?"

Amy walked to the next patient. I walked with her. "Yeah. I just wish I could be out there, at Vicky's side..." she said with a sigh. "Now I don't know what's happening to my family unless they get brought in here."

* * *

Speaking of Vicky, it looked like she was going for another rematch against Hookwolf. Except this time, Hookwolf saw her coming, was completely ready for a cape fight, and the ocean wasn't nearby to knock him into.

I made sure one of my Abyssals was ready to go to distract him. Cricket was in the area too, but she was easy to take care of. With the bots I had left inside her body, I just reactivated them, told them to migrate to the arteries in her neck again, and boom. Out like a light. Hookwolf, however, was an entirely different problem.

"Hey Hook, you still owe me a dress!"

As Glory Girl slammed into the prickly cape foot-first, Hookwolf braced himself and struck back at her. Although she had the definite strength advantage, Hookwolf used leverage and his massive weight to deflect her into a car even as he got knocked over. He shrugged off the damage as metal bits fell off his body, with more of them regrowing in their place.

"I don't owe you anything, you race-traitor," he snarled.

Glory Girl was pulling sheetmetal apart to get out of the car that had folded in half around her when Hookwolf charged. I made Abyssal intercept him, hopefully to either cause Hookwolf to stumble or stop him completely. With both blades extended, there was no way Hookwolf was going to be able to dodge to the side, so the villain jumped over Abyssal's low, sweeping swing.

Abyssal jumped as well, causing them to collide mid-air. Hookwolf grappled, but I didn't let him gain any grip. I dissolved Abyssal and had the bots flow over Hookwolf's body. He landed on the ground with Abyssal reforming above him, pinning him by the neck. My bots were desperately searching for a weak point on his skin. The steel of his hooks were far more than skin deep; as my bots attempted to dig into him, they kept finding more steel instead of blood vessels. It looked like his Changer ability completely converted his body.

No wonder he was so durable. And heavy. He probably weighed more than Abyssal at full size; he was already shrugging off my attempts to restrain him.

Glory Girl broke out of the car and gave Hookwolf a flying uppercut, sending more shards of metal flying. His neck twisted in a harsh whiplash, since Abyssal's bots were holding his body down while his chin snapped upwards from the blow.

* * *

"I hope Vicky doesn't get hurt," Amy said. "It really sucks, having to sit here and just wonder. She's not completely invincible, you know. She's pretty reckless. I've had to heal her, but she never learns her lesson."

I was tempted to actually let Amy in on my secret. Let her know I was watching over Vicky right now, helping her out. Give her a play-by-play of the action tonight. But it wasn't the time. Then again, I would need to reveal a whole lot to her once it came to healing Lisa. She was safe inside Dragon's mobile workshop at the moment – medically stable, but I needed things to calm down more before bringing her to the hospital.

The other option would be to bring Lisa to her. And I'd have to explain the situation to her, because it would be hard to lie to her while in Dragon's presence. Kind of make things awkward and probably send the wrong signals.

And I definitely needed to consult Amy with a few things later once my new prosthetic-neuron style bots were ready. I had about two hundred variations to test at the moment. It had to be sooner rather than later, before Lisa's condition got worse, but for now, I had to help calm the city down.

* * *

Well, it looked like reinforcements had arrived. Dauntless, the Dallons, a few PRT troops came onto the scene. Hookwolf and Cricket were restrained, foamed, and then the group received a call for more backup at the Medhall building. It looked like Kaiser and the twins were all ramping up against Lung. None of them were attempting to hide or deny their identities any more, and they were going all-out. Most of the other Empire members were rallying to that location, too.

As Vicky flew, I took out Stormtiger the same way I took out Cricket, helping out the heroes who were fighting at _that_ location. Although that meant it was giving Oni Lee an advantage. I used one Abyssal to try to even things out and keep everyone else safe, but I had no way of dealing with an explosive, teleporting cape. Krieg and Alabaster were no slouches either; they could hold their own. Most of the Protectorate heroes had been backing off, waiting for backup.

I couldn't do anything in the primary fight involving Lung, either, but I was still using Abyssal to run interference against both sides. I could have taken Krieg out with my bots too, but unfortunately he was fighting Oni Lee. I wanted him to go to jail, not explode defenselessly against a serial killer.

My bots weren't getting near Lung. I learned that long ago, and even with further improvements. Maybe I could have taken him in the first two minutes or so, but he didn't just get bigger, he got hotter as he fought too. At his current ramping level, my bots were incinerated before I could touch his skin. One of the pitfalls of being made from carbon. Even diamond burned at high enough temperature. And yes, Lung could easily reach that temperature.

Fenja and Menja were using their massive size to pin down Lung and their toughness to resist his flames, but that would only last a short while longer as Lung continued to grow. I tried to get bots into their bodies as well, but at their massive size, their skin was proportionally tougher. Not that I wanted to take them out right away; they were doing a good job of keeping Lung from doing too much damage.

The Pelhams arrived together; they all immediately began to hammer down on Lung with practiced coordination. It looked like they had discussed their engagement strategy during the flight over. The men went to ground level, with Manpower helping the Empire twins to keep Lung under control and Shielder providing additional last-minute defense against Lung's random fireballs and explosions. The ladies stayed in the air and bombarded the dragon with concussive light blasts.

That meant Kaiser was being given free reign to attack the unpowered ABB members. Sure, he sent an occasional blade Lung's way to trip him up, but for the most part, he was the cause of the blood and screaming among the gangsters.

He had a fancy medieval-style armour, though made with high-quality modern materials. I could see that it was fully bulletproof. But it wasn't bot-proof. Time to end _this_ fight. My bots slipped in between the cracks of his armour. Kaiser was too focused on all the big threats, like Lung, Oni Lee, and the ABB gang members with guns. With the constantly-shifting light from Laserdream and Lung, the shadows flickered constantly, making it impossible to notice my bots swarming towards him. I didn't even have to be subtle about it. Under the armour, he was as squishy as a normal human. My bots went into his bloodstream, and he went out like a light.

Naturally, just because he went down didn't mean his opponents stopped shooting. So in came Abyssal, giving each one of them a good whack and disabling their weapons, and injured the ones that were too unruly. Kaiser was already waking up when I was done with them; I had to use the bots in his blood to knock him out a second time. The PRT was too busy with Lung to get a foam dispenser on him. Abyssal grabbed the Empire leader and dragged him towards the nearest group of heroes I could see, which was back towards Lung.

The sound of metal scraping along asphalt wasn't loud, but it was distinctive. It caught a enough peoples' attention, including Fenja and Menja. Lung was sufficiently pinned down by all of New Wave and Fenja and Menja together, but their sudden distraction allowed him to break free. Instead of continuing the fight, he just gave a triumphant sneer at Kaiser, and retreated.

Did that asshole just take credit for _my_ takedown?

I was hoping there wouldn't be another fight, but Fenja and Menja weren't going to let Kaiser be captured. And with Lung mostly out of the way, they were even more focused on their leader. Abyssal wasn't actually strong enough to stop them at their full size; they ploughed straight past all the heroes and grabbed their leader away from Abyssal. I let him shatter into his constituent bots. Although most of New Wave tried to stop them, they were in full retreat. They blocked most of the light blasts from Laserdream and Lady Photon with their shields. The speed at which they ran was difficult to keep up with, even for the fliers.

It wasn't worth the effort, not when there were still more battles raging elsewhere in the city. At least I had bots inside Kaiser; if he tried anything again, I'd be ready. I could take him down later when the PRT had more room in their jail cells.

* * *

The fight at Medhall had finally calmed down. Multiple Empire members lay on the ground, injured or foamed. Lung was gone – he'd done critical damage to the Medhall building, knocking out one of the primary support columns. The skyscraper was at risk of collapse, and the building was being evacuated. Once again, the police and PRT couldn't risk continuing the fight or the whole thing would have collapsed. They chose to allow him to leave and shrink back to a normal human while they aided in the evacuation, settling for arresting the Empire members at the scene. Same with Kaiser, Fenja, and Menja – they were allowed to leave in favour of rescuing civilians.

Dauntless was flying to the upper floors, focusing on rescuing people who were trapped and couldn't reach the fire escape. Aegis had volunteered to do the same.

However, almost all the high-ranking capes from the corporation were arrested. Krieg, Crusader, Stormtiger, Hookwolf, Cricket… it was a humongous victory for the PRT. Sure, the leaders of both gangs had gotten away, but you couldn't have it all.

Of course, the remaining Empire members were still on a rampage through town. They didn't receive a play-by-play of what was going on elsewhere. The PRT had been successful in a single concentrated fight, but now they had to spread their heroes out across dozens of separate pockets of violence. It was too much for the police to handle, and most of the Protectorate was focused on making sure their captures didn't escape.

Velocity had been sent out for scouting. Armsmaster had decided to patrol on his bike. Just about all the other Protectorate members had been assigned to escort the arrested villains. The Wards, on the other hand, had been scattered. A few were assisting the Protectorate, but some were fighting were on their own, which was unusual. They often worked in pairs, and rarely fought at all. I suspected the ones fighting weren't actually following orders.

Armsmaster was heading to back up Browbeat. He was physically the biggest Ward, and possibly even tougher than Aegis. To be honest, he was holding his own pretty well, and was practically alone in defending the biggest African-American neighbourhood of Brockton Bay. The Nazis had given up on attempting to fight the ABB, who were fully riled up and ready to fight back. The black community, on the other hand, was smaller and had fewer representatives.

To be fair, Browbeat had been doing surprisingly well on his own. His enormous physique had allowed him to carry a makeshift shield in the form of a steel-reinforced door, which protected him from small-arms gunfire and let him use it to non-lethally knock people down. However, he looked like he was getting tired. I didn't know how much of his body was natural and how much was a Changer power or whatever, but he seemed to be getting a bit smaller.

I decided to help him out as well, because I could see Victor, Othala, and Rune had joined. This group was probably the biggest single group of Empire members remaining, and those two were the last few Empire Capes that were running free. I supposed they were attempting to regroup or salvage what was left. Rune and Othala kept hovering above, safe and out of range. Victor jumped down into the fray with some fancy somersault-roll that maintained his momentum.

I didn't bother forming up Abyssal to help Browbeat; I just used the bots on the ground to trip up or knock out random Nazis. Unfortunately, I couldn't do anything against Victor, who had been rendered invincible. I couldn't even penetrate his skin. When the Nazi cape started to fight the beefy Ward, there was little I could do to help. I could slow him down slightly by trying to stick him to the ground, but that didn't help all that much. Browbeat had been fighting for the past hour on his own, Viktor was mostly fresh.

Meanwhile, I had to use Abyssal to protect innocent people from Rune's telekinetic rocks flying around, using him as a massive shield wherever she threw those things.

When Armsmaster arrived, he got off his bike and drew his halberd, but he kept it in ranged mode. He shot off a flash-flare at Rune and Othala, who were retreating, and then immediately loaded a tranquilizer and aimed it at Rune.

Although the flare seemed to blind Rune, she moved her platform erratically, causing his tranquilizer to miss. He didn't get a second chance to take out Rune as Viktor charged straight at him. Browbeat looked completely tired out, and was barely able to stay on his feet. His body was shrinking as well; he looked almost like a normal human now. That was fine, though, I was diverting bots to the area now that the big fight at Medhall was over.

Viktor fearlessly closed in for a series of punches and elbows. Armsmaster managed to get a hold of Viktor and use his suit's power to lift Viktor off the ground. Invincibility didn't mean super weight; with the loss in footing Viktor's elbow strike had much less force behind it. He followed up with a strike to the gut, but Viktor simply tanked the hit with his invincibility, blocking the blow with his arm while simultaneously delivering a roundhouse kick to Armsmaster's head.

Viktor raised his other arm, aiming his pistol at Armsmaster's face. At this range, Armsmaster knew he would be able to aim perfectly at the gap in his mouth. He stepped forward and grabbed Viktor's arm with his left hand; the shot glanced off the armour covering his cheek.

Before he could twist Viktor's wrist and force him to drop the gun, the Empire fighter had twisted his body and clamped down on his halberd with his armpit while following through with an elbow strike at Armsmaster's face.

He deliberately let go of his halberd to grab Viktor's leg and deliver a knee to the face; Viktor pushed away and took Armsmaster's halberd with him. He landed a few feet away on his feet, gun at the ready, again aiming his gun at the only gap in Armsmaster's armour. I had no doubt he had the skill to place the shot on target.

The halberd suddenly electrocuted Viktor. It didn't hurt him, but it was more the surprise that caused Viktor to miss and drop the halberd. It teleported back to Armsmaster's hands, and then the hero re-engaged.

Armsmaster went on the offensive, using his combat predictive software and his suit to the max while he advanced with a flurry of stabs, forcing Viktor to push his own power to the limit as he acrobatically backpedaled. He managed to find a split second to fire his weapon, forcing Armsmaster to shift his body slightly and delay a strike; it was enough for Viktor to begin the counterattack.

That fight went almost nowhere, especially since Armsmaster had to restrain instead of injure Victor. He fought with skill I could barely understand like some kind of kung-fu master in steel armour. But Victor had just as much skill, if not more. He deliberately used his invincibility to tank hits and force Armsmaster into sub-optimal positions. After all, most fighting techniques probably didn't account for someone who deliberately took a deathblow in order to keep going.

Moreover, as the fight went on, Armsmaster looked like he was flagging. His technique was getting sloppier, he was missing more often, leaving himself more open to Victor's counterattacks. I didn't know if he was getting tired, or angry. Maybe his suit was losing power. Maybe he was paranoid about Rune joining in, even though I was keeping her at bay the best I could. Wait, wasn't Victor's super-power to steal skills or something like that? Could he have been deliberately dragging the fight out to take away all of Armsmaster's combat skills?

Viktor didn't have super-strength to punch through Armsmaster's power armour, regardless of his technique. But his armour was the only thing saving Armsmaster at the moment, because he couldn't keep up with Viktor. Even so, the Nazi did some fancy backflips to regroup with Rune and Othala. The two capes dipped low to the ground. She touched him, and then he was immediately rushing Armsmaster again.

Fuck, I should have put more priority on Othala. I was focusing almost all my bots on protecting people from Rune's projectiles, while Othala was just cowering on the platform doing nothing. It was a bit too late to correct that mistake, but I immediately sent more bots into her bloodstream to knock her out now. At that height, I had to throw some more bot-javelins at them to shower them in a large number of bots. Rune dodged and blocked them often, and it took quite a few tries to actually get enough bots crawling on their bodies to enter their circulatory system.

Meanwhile, Armsmaster swung down at Viktor, who used a basic combat knife to block the blow. His attack wasn't just stopped dead, he was knocked slightly back. Including his power armour, he was over four hundred pounds. Viktor had switched out invincibility for super-strength. He must have been very confident in his ability to completely dodge Armsmaster's attacks, because as far as I knew that power didn't grant super-durability to match. Wait, that meant I could probably knock him out, too.

Viktor maximized the use of his gifted super-strength now, hammering away at Armsmaster's technological strength enhancement with his own. Every deflection and block he performed was backed with extra strength, forcing Armsmaster further and further off-balance. It was powerful enough that I was seeing dents in the iconic power armour.

Armsmaster was definitely about to lose if I didn't intervene fast enough, but I was almost done. Rune and Othala were knocked out already, and they fell to the ground. My bots had finally swarmed on to Viktor's skin, and it would only take another minute to get into place and knock him out.

Armsmaster went for a powerful swing down, but Viktor caught it. The two of them struggled hard against each other, but Viktor looked like he was about to win. Armsmaster didn't do anything fancy any more; he was just pushing down with all his strength.

Suddenly, Browbeat was standing in place of Viktor. He had shrunk down to a normal person – just a typical, if larger, teenager. Without any more resistance, Armsmaster's halberd swung down at full power.

It bisected the young man before anyone could react.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

\- I have since realized that Browbeat's power doesn't quite work like that, but, again, I mostly laid out this story based on fanon. And honestly... Browbeat barely gets mentioned. In fanon or canon. I can't even be sure what race he was. So I just chalked it up to "unimportant" and made it work this way for my story.

\- Also, I have to wonder how a teenager with an inhumanly ultra-buff body could ever have a secret identity if they couldn't change back to "normal-sized" out of costume.


	36. Exposure 6

Exposure 6

Dragon, of all people, was the first to react to Browbeat's death. "Eunoia, something has come up. Concentrate on Lisa for me, I need to deal with this," she said.

Viktor was confused. He didn't seem to know what was going on. My bots were trying to scramble all over Browbeat, to no avail. I couldn't heal or even stop this kind of injury, he needed Panacea. But there was no way to get to her in time.

My bots finally managed to stop Viktor, causing him to crumple unconscious. Not that that helped.

Who the hell was it that had swapped them? It seemed like the same cape that had helped Grue get close to my house, but they were out of costume. And there were tons of spectators to the fight, many of whom were watching from the apartment windows. My guess was that it might have been that interracial couple that had been near my house… but I hadn't taken note of the man's face. There was no wheelchair girl around, and in that particular neighbourhood, there were hundreds of African-American males.

"**Dragon? Is it Armsmaster and… friendly fire**?" I asked from the interior of her mobile workshop. It wasn't a difficult guess that she might have known. Dragon worked with, and was often friends with, many big-name Tinkers around the world, and Armsmaster was the greatest Tinker in the region. Their personal friendship was no secret.

"Oh, you know about that? Ah, Abyssal was there. You saw it for yourself. I'm going to try to sort things out. It was clearly a case of malicious interference."

Dragon went quiet, so I assumed she logged off. By the time our conversation ended, Browbeat was already dead. At least I could focus on healing everyone else. Even without much left on the streets, I still had to take care of Lisa and my patients in the hospital.

With twenty brains focused on various different aspects of Lisa's condition and health, I was confident she was stable for now. And a few hundred brains working on bot design to help fix her brain, maybe I could even get her walking and talking sooner rather than later. Though I needed to get her to Panacea somehow, or the other way around.

* * *

The hospital was still busy, mostly from the aftermath of the Empire's reveal. I tried to sneak in some time with Panacea for advice when I could. I sped up the process by working on even more patients simultaneously, mending minor wounds and stabilizing everyone who had signed the consent forms right away, even before the nurses informed me of them. I just pretended I was working faster, instead of earlier. It just put less load on my teammate and saved time. Possibly lives, too.

"Hey, could you check something for me?" I asked, when the most critical patients were all done.

"Uh, sure. What is it?"

"I'm not sure if you're able to… but I have a few prototype bots I'm working on. Do you think they could… well, properly replace neurons?" I asked.

Panacea looked at me with a suspicious expression. "Define 'replace.'"

"Like, literally sit in the brain and act like a neuron. Interface with biological neurons. Powered by biological nutrients, like glucose and ATP. Waste materials only carbon dioxide. Anything else I need to account for?"

"Can it read the differences between each neurotransmitter?"

"Uh, some designs can, others bypass that step by ignoring the actual synapse," I told her. "I have a few designs for you to test."

"Can it wait until later? It's still kind of busy right now, and the code orange isn't over," she said. "There's probably going to be a third wave of patients, at minimum."

"Not… not too long?" I asked her hopefully. It wasn't hard to keep Lisa stable and alive for another day. Basic hydration and nutrients were taken care of; my bots around the city could fetch ingredients I needed easily, and she was stable right now. "There's something I need to show you."

* * *

At the remains of my home, I watched as PRT officers took a look at the area. It was basically a charred crater now. There was nothing for them to find beyond the sidewalk. After some talking on the radio, I watched other officers approached my father at work.

"Sir, are you Danny Hebert?" an officer asked.

"Yes, what's the matter? Is this about Bruce Gardner? He's been accused of…" Dad was pointing at the guy sitting on the chair being watched by several of his co-workers.

The PRT officer held up a hand and shook his head. "This is a different issue, the BBPD will be along soon to pick him up for questioning. Can you confirm your address for me?"

"2378 West 34th Avenue," dad answered.

"Sir, I'm afraid to inform you that your home was destroyed in a parahuman attack. We'd like you to come with us for protection and to help with the investigation."

"Wait! My daughter… is my daughter alright? Taylor, she…"

"Yes, we're aware of your daughter Taylor Hebert. Cape persona Eunoia… she's confirmed to be working at Brockton General right now. We've sent officers to retrieve her."

Dad visibly calmed down and breathed a huge sigh of relief. After that, he was much more willing to follow the officer and was driven away to PRT headquarters.

* * *

Right on cue, I saw PRT officers enter the hospital. They were directed from the welcome desk to where I was.

"Eunoia? Do you have a moment to speak privately?"

"What's this about?" I tried to feign my ignorance. "It's kind of busy in the hospital at the moment."

"I'll talk to you later, Eunoia," Panacea said as she started to walk away.

"Actually, this might involve you as well," the officer said. "You see, Eunoia's home has come under attack by a parahuman. This could be an attack on New Wave as a whole."

Panacea's eyes bugged out. "What? Are you serious?"

"Yes. We'd like you to come in as well."

I looked at the officer, and to the overflowing hospital ER. Despite the work Panacea and I had been doing, the stretchers were full and so were the chairs. Patients that were able to stand were pretty much left standing.

"Oh god, this is like Fleur all over again," Panacea muttered.

After informing the doctors, we followed the officer and accepted the ride.

* * *

I could tell by the time we arrived at PRT headquarters that everyone else was there already. Not too hard to understand since they had been fighting alongside the Protectorate members. Dad was sitting with them in a meeting room. When we walked in, Dad got up and rushed over for a hug.

"Thank goodness you're safe, Taylor," Dad said. "Have you heard?"

"Yeah, the officer mentioned it," I told him. "Our home's gone…"

"I've lost so much already… at least you're safe. I can't imagine losing you."

"…same." I realized I had rarely told him that I loved him, at least not since mom died. And it felt a little awkward now, especially with everyone else in the room.

"Good. Everyone's here," Miss Militia said. "Let me give you the summary. At approximately two-fifteen PM this afternoon, we received multiple reports of a parahuman fight in the Hillrise neighbourhood. By two-twenty, someone reported a bright light in the sky. Around the same time, people started reporting the sounds of explosions and a fire. Unfortunately, due to the ongoing riots, we weren't able to get an officer to the area until just before three o'clock. Firefighters had already suppressed the fires. There was nothing left, and we found no victims, although there are a few people who are presumed missing."

"Wait, what about your friend? Lisa?" Dad asked me. "Wasn't she staying in the guest room?"

Everyone looked to me to confirm. I was, of course, the last person to see her alive, aside from Dragon over video chat. Could I let them know the truth? Would Dragon say anything? Or was it better to deny anything and fake Lisa's death? I decided to play dumb. My other brains could help coordinate with Dragon, ask her what was going on. I was pretty certain it wasn't illegal to simply not tell them everything.

"She was still there when I left the house. And she gave me a phone call from the house around noon. She didn't feel safe to leave," I told them. All true. And the phone records could probably be traced if they had a warrant.

Amy and Vicky both gasped. Now everyone's eyes turned to Miss Militia.

"Unfortunately, the damage was so extensive that there is very little evidence to gather. The temperatures of the fire were in the thousands of degrees. We don't expect to find many remains, if any exist. Without any confirmation, we have to categorize it as a missing persons case, but the outlook isn't good," Miss Militia said grimly.

"Is this… a targeted attack on New Wave?" Lady Photon asked.

"Until we can confirm that it isn't, we'll treat it as such," Miss Militia said. "The damage done isn't consistent with any known Empire-affiliated parahuman, but we can't ignore the possibility of outside help."

"It couldn't be plain old arson? The Empire has a lot of footsoldiers," Dad said.

Miss Militia shook her head. "From what we could tell, the temperatures were far too high. Enough to melt steel. A parahuman power is far more likely than any conventional means. And from what we've gathered, there have been rumours circulating online that the exposure of the Empire's identities was orchestrated by New Wave."

"What? That's ridiculous!" Lady Photon exclaimed. Everyone else also shouted in protest.

Miss Militia raised her hand. "We're looking into it, and I can't tell you the details until the investigation is concluded. But I can summarize the information being spread online. First, Tattletale was seen associating with New Wave during the Behemoth fight. Second, she was caught on camera entering Eunoia's home. Third, people have traced the document release to Tattletale. The theory goes that New Wave sought retribution for Fleur's murder by using Tattletale's skills."

"That's complete horseshit," Shielder muttered. His parents didn't even admonish him for his language, as they were too shocked.

"With that being said, we are presuming you're innocent until proven guilty. And you are in more danger from the thugs than they are from you. There are a few options we can offer you. First, you can choose to come under our direct protection, but that means staying at the PRT building…"

"You mean in a few of your cells," Brandish said.

"Or perhaps this room right here. Most of our beds are currently occupied until we can transfer the capes, so unfortunately we won't have better accommodations. You'll be free to come and leave as you like, of course, but it won't be comfortable," Miss Militia said.

"I'm thinking option B is going to be far better, whatever it is," Manpower said.

"The other option is to relocate you. We'll help move you to another city, though settling in is entirely on you. We can use our leverage to help smooth things out and make things happen more quickly, but the costs will primarily be on you. We can also alert the local law enforcement of what to watch out for, but we can't provide any direct protection."

"So, it's literally just moving us away from the problem. It doesn't seem like much," Dad said.

Miss Militia nodded in agreement. "While it isn't as impressive, the PRT has found it to be quite effective yet budget-friendly option, which to date has been estimated to have protected over twenty thousand people nationwide. Our data shows that criminals, especially gangs, tend to work within certain territories, and simply moving people far enough away reduces the possibility of further retaliation by as much as ninety-seven percent."

"Wait, does that mean we can't be heroes?" Vicky asked.

"The program isn't like Witness Protection – you won't be getting new identities. We recommend you lay low for a while, but it's your choice. Your power sets are rather distinctive, especially if you work together. Panacea as well; her healing is well-documented," Miss Militia pointed out. "However, I would highly recommend Mr. Hebert be relocated, since you don't have as much physical or… cultural protection."

"It would also mean giving up our jobs. I can't just drop legal cases on a dime," Brandish said. "I have a duty to inform my clients and find appropriate replacements."

"Hey, Panacea saves hundreds of lives a day," Laserdream pointed out. "Are you telling her to stop?"

"The program does offer some employer incentives to help you transition to another job when possible," Miss Militia said. "It's not the most ideal, but we've found ways to make it smoother than a typical move."

"I can't stop," Panacea said. "Isn't a hero someone who helps others despite the danger to themselves?"

I turned to my father. "Dad, maybe you need to be placed under protection, but I need to support my teammates," I told him. I scooted my chair a little closer to Panacea's.

"This is something we'll need to discuss as a team," Lady Photon said. "Can you give us some time to come to a decision?"

"Of course," Miss Militia said. "Keep in mind it can take some time to arrange the move should you choose to do so."

* * *

"Taylor, why don't you stay with us for now?" Vicky was the first to make the suggestion as we left the PRT building.

I looked to my dad. "I'm okay with that. Let me go and buy some, uh, _necessities_ and I'll meet you at the Dallons," he said. He glanced over to Mr. Dallon to confirm. Mr. Dallon just shrugged – at least he wasn't _against_ the idea.

"I need to finish up some matters at the office. You get settled up in the guest room, and we'll have a team meeting after dinnertime, if that works, Sarah?"

Mrs. Pelham nodded as well. "Team meeting at Aunt Carol's after dinner," she confirmed with her own kids.

Vicky was about to fly me and Amy back, when I decided to ask her to take a detour. I had thought about it a lot, but one measly secret wasn't worth risking Lisa's life. I'd have to admit a few things to Amy and Vicky… and figure out who else to tell afterwards. I _needed_ Amy to be there when I fixed up Lisa's brain. I needed her to fix up everything else too, like the skull and skin, and maybe clear up any diseases I may have missed. That much I couldn't avoid.

"Vicky, could you take us down near Captain's Hill? There's something important I have to do. And… I need Amy, too."

From Vicky's arms, Amy have me a questioning look. "Please don't tell me it has something to do with your neuron replacement bot from earlier," she said.

"It has a _lot_ to do with my neuron replacement bots from earlier," I told her.

She looked worried.

"Right down there!" I said, pointing at Dragon's workshop. Vicky spotted it easily, since it was a very unique and distinctive vehicle with a dragon theme. She landed right beside it, looking at it curiously. I dropped down from Vicky's piggyback and walked up to the door. I pounded on the side. "Dragon! Open up! I need to see… you know."

"Wait, Dragon? As in _the_ Dragon? She's here?" Vicky asked, surprised. "Is this her RV? I thought she never left home."

The door opened up and I walked inside. Dragon's face was on the screens. Vicky peered inside, and after seeing all the equipment and Dragon's virtual presence, was a bit disappointed.

"Hello, Eunoia. And welcome to my mobile workshop, Panacea and Glory Girl."

"Oh. Hey, again, Dragon. This is pretty cool, I guess. I think your regular suits are cooler though," Vicky said, looking around. Then Lisa's body caught her eye. She shrieked.

"What? What's happening?" Amy asked, still stuck at the doorway. She looked and saw Lisa's body as well. Unlike Vicky, she was much more clinical about it. She walked up to Lisa and touched her. "Taylor, she's been shot in the head."

Vicky gaped wordlessly. She floated around and noticed the hole in Lisa's head. She almost gagged.

"I think I can save her," I said firmly.

Amy sighed. "You honestly want to try to fix her brain? Let me know what's going on."

"Where to start… um, it was a few minutes after you started the raid on Coil's base," I started the explanation with Vicky. "Lisa used to work for Coil. She knew Coil wanted her dead. So she hid at my house until it blew over."

"But it's all over the internet! She had all of the Empire's identities. She started all of…" Vicky pointed out, waving her arms chaotically.

Dragon was the one that answered. "Actually, I was able to trace the origins of the information. The person who logged into Lisa's PHO account and email did it from a different part of the city. Furthermore, they spoofed the location to Lisa's apartment building, which has not been in use since before the Endbringer attack. Rather sloppy hacking by my standards. I intend to provide this information as evidence that she was framed."

Vicky paused. So did I, for a different reason. I was thinking that _everyone_ was a sloppy hacker compared to Dragon. Except maybe her nemeses, the Dragonslayers. How close had we been to having everyone _actually_ pin the blame on Lisa?

I continued. "Anyways, then there was an attack on my home and, well, long story short, a sniper shot her in the head."

Dragon showed the bullet I had left with her, now contained in an airtight glass cylinder. "It comes from a Tinker named Bigger Bro who works both sides of the law. He specializes in identification and tracking technology. Military and law enforcement have been known to use some of his tech, unofficially. This very bullet is advertised on his darkweb catalogue. Unfortunately, it's unlikely he will ever reveal who his customer was."

"Thanks, Dragon. Is there any actual lead or toxic stuff on there?" I asked.

"None. It's mostly a tungsten alloy, actually."

"No tungsten poisoning," Amy confirmed. "Though it's pretty difficult to get it anyway."

"Good. After that, since Dragon was already on the way into town, she offered to give her shelter. So I got her out of the house just in time before a cape burned it down, and met up with Dragon," I said.

"You knew she was alive? And you didn't tell Miss Militia?" Vicky asked.

"I think, for now, it would be best if everyone thought she had died in the fire, until we can find out who really tried to frame her," I said.

"I agree with that assessment," Dragon said. "Thus, I am willing to hold her until the case is solved."

"Wait, that doesn't make sense. How did you manage to meet with Dragon? You were with me the whole time at the hospital," Amy said.

I took a deep breath. Here it was. "I am Abyssal," I said.

"Wait… you're… but…" Glory Girl started to say. "But Abyssal was with us at the raid on Coil's base… and then at the fight downtown…"

"And at home. And other places. I can explain the details later. But the important thing is… Amy, can you help me save Lisa's life?" I tried to distract them a bit and focus on the real problem at hand.

Amy looked at me like I was an alien. "Yeah. Yeah, sure," she said blankly.

"So, like I said, I have about two hundred different designs of bots that could possibly work to fix Lisa's brain, can you tell me which one's the best?" I asked.

"Alright, stick them in and I'll see how compatible they are," Amy said, nodding towards Lisa's head while she had a hand on her ankle.

"Here's the first version," I said.

* * *

Dragon was watching quietly as I worked and tested things out with Amy. It took less time than I feared, because Amy was able to help eliminate entire categories of bots with designs that didn't work. It mainly boiled down to optimizing and combining about four different ones. With a single final design chosen, I started mass-manufacturing more copies of that bot. Meanwhile, Amy healed up everything else with Lisa. It would take a few more days of constant testing and work before I even had a hope of fixing up Lisa, and she would remain unconscious until then. At least Amy gave her a relatively good bill of health. Just a minor issue of having a hole in the brain.

The time we had was up, and we had to head back to the Dallons' home for dinner.

"Hey, guys? Could you, uh, keep the Abyssal thing a secret for now? I… I like working with all of you, and I just want to help however I can… I don't want to get kicked off the team."

Vicky gave me a powerful hug. "Tay-tay, I'm already inviting you over to stay at our place. You're practically a sister now! And it makes things easier to know if Mr. Tall Dark and Mysterious is actually a teenage girl," she laughed.

"Carol's not going to like it," Amy said. "But then again… there's a lot she doesn't like."

"Would you mind… not telling her?" I asked cautiously.

The two sisters both shrugged differently. Amy looked more nonchalant about it while Vicky looked scandalized. Though she seemed to take enjoyment in scandals and gossip, too. She was wavering for a bit, but then she asked, "Taylor… just wondering. If you're going to fix people's brains, are you able to, uh, fix Dad? He's been in a bad headspace for a while now…"

"He's suffering from depression," Amy explained more precisely. "It comes and goes, and the meds help, but it's not always consistent."

"I kinda miss patrolling with him. He's… just not as motivated these days," Vicky said.

"Um… I'll need to do more research, because I haven't done a lot of work with depression, actually. But I'll give it my best shot once I've figured it out," I said.

"That's good enough for me. Honestly, I don't care what you're doing with all your extra bots, because you're still a hero," Vicky told me, beaming. "Well, hop on. See you later, Dragon!"

"We'll be in touch," Dragon said. "Eunoia, I look forward to when we have time to truly collaborate. Your design process was fascinating."

* * *

Over at the Dallon's house, I was about to get much more familiar with the place. Vicky lead me upstairs to the bedrooms, and she showed me the guest room. Unfortunately, it only had one bed ready.

"Hm. Well, this is going to be kind of awkward. I'm guessing you don't want to sleep in the same bed as your dad," Vicky said.

I knew I could create a decently-comfortable bed out of bots. Better than comfortable, actually. I could contour the thing to be perfectly ergonomic. I just needed to gather some bots from around…

"You can take my bed," Amy suddenly said.

"What?"

"You can take my bed. Um, if Vicky wants to… like we did when we were little," Amy suggested.

"Oh. My. God. That is such a good idea! It'll be just like old times! Before we moved into this house, we had to share a room and the two of us had to share a bed for a while. Wow, talk about nostalgia!" Vicky said with a wide smile.

"Thanks, Amy. It means a lot to me," I told her. "Sorry for being such a burden."

"It's nothing," Amy said, looking more embarrassed than I would have expected. I never had a sibling, but I remembered sharing a bed with Emma back in the day. She was practically a sister… was it really so embarrassing? I didn't really bother to push it. I was glad to have a bed to sleep in at all, until we figured things out.

"Come on, everyone to my room! Amy, we have to figure out spots. And Taylor, I can give you some clothes to wear for now."

"Uh, no need," I said. I was borrowing so much from them already. "I can use my bots to turn into clothes." I showed them by changing my costume into my usual unassuming hoodie-and-jeans look.

Vicky gaped. "Taylor! You have the best power ever! Do a leather jacket!"

"Kids! Time for dinner!" I heard Mrs. Dallon's voice from downstairs. "We got pizza! Hurry up while it's hot!"

"Coming, Mom!" Vicky shouted back.

I was glad for the distraction. Thank goodness. I wasn't ready to play dress-up again.

* * *

Nobody could complain about pizza. With all the chaos of the day, we all needed something quick and tasty, and nobody had any time to cook a proper meal.

Dad arrived with toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, washcloths, towels, pyjamas, and other basics. He was looking pretty distraught – I knew he had swung by our house to take a look before coming here. There really were no remains. He always talked about growing up in that house; it had been part of his entire life. As much as it was mine. My other brains reassured me and helped enforce some cold, hard logic to the situation. I knew I had options; I had powers. Dad didn't. He had a lot more to get over and a lot less to get over it with.

But when he saw me sitting with my friends and enjoying myself, he cheered up as well. Greasy slices of pure comfort food and a few beers definitely helped. Our house was gone. Dad and I had both figured out our own ways to accept it.

Now, it was time to decide what to do about it.

"I'm not a fan of going into hiding," Mrs. Dallon started. "I'm not going to surrender to the Empire. They tried to end us by killing Fleur. They won't end us now."

"Although I think Danny and Taylor should probably take them up on the offer, at least," Mr. Pelham said.

"I always knew there was a chance of getting caught in the crossfire when I let Taylor sign up for this," Dad said. "And she's grown so much and developed amazingly in such a short time she's been a hero. But I want Taylor to be safe. So if there's someone targeting us, I would rather move away."

"If we don't move, we may have to sleep in shifts. Most of the Empire's capes may have been arrested, but there's still hundreds of lunatic members who might try to kill us while we sleep," Crystal said.

I could probably guard them from that with Abyssal – I didn't need to sleep with every single brain at the same time, including my biological one. Should I admit my powers to them? It would let them keep living relatively normal lives, and we could keep fighting crime instead of hiding out like cowards. But… it was practically a betrayal of their principles. I looked to Amy and Vicky, both of whom were keeping quiet for now.

I didn't want to move. I had my power base here. I was manufacturing bots straight from the landfill, which provided me with nearly unlimited materials, and I already had established my watch on most of the city. Despite the attack, I still felt safer when I had thousands of supporting brains and vision over nearly all the public areas of the city. While my range was ever-increasing, one big move could make it all moot.

"How far will we be moving? And what will we be actually getting from the PRT in terms of support?" I asked. Miss Militia had been light on the details.

Mrs. Dallon shook her head. "It's certainly not WITSEC. It's much lower budget, for one thing. There's no new identities, they don't buy houses and things for us. It's effectively just a moving-assistance program. They'll help find transportation, recommend new jobs, negotiate rent, enroll in new schools, and so on. It's meant to just separate people from established criminal activity. And it typically stays in-state. In this case, since the Empire 88 is almost entirely based in Brockton Bay, they'll probably only help us move to another city like Manchester," she explained.

"Well that's kind of disappointing," Eric said. "What's stopping some Empire guy from coming over and trying to burn down our new home?"

"A forty-minute drive," Dad said dryly.

"Still, a drive many might not be willing to make. Criminals are pretty lazy. They pick the easiest targets, not the hard ones," Mrs. Dallon said, the contempt dripping from her voice.

"Manchester doesn't have a huge cape presence. We could actually make a pretty big dent on crime if they move us there – we'd instantly be the biggest hero group if that's where we end up."

"We'd be the biggest hero group anywhere in the state outside of Brockton Bay," Mr. Pelham confirmed.

"I wouldn't mind getting a fresh start," Crystal said. "Then again, I'm out of town for college most of the time anyway. I think you guys should have the bigger say."

"Maybe we're looking at it wrong. This could be an opportunity," Mrs. Pelham said. "Carol, your license is good anywhere in the state, so it's not a huge problem. I can find new clients for my job, it shouldn't take too long. You can even keep working for your firm remotely and not have to drop any cases. The commute might be horrible when you're required to show up in court, but this is temporary." Turning to me and Amy, she added, "And it wouldn't be a bad thing to help out at other hospitals, too. Sick people are everywhere, and there's won't be a shortage no matter where we end up. And lastly… maybe Brockton Bay was the wrong place for us after all."

"What do you mean?" her sister said pointedly.

"It's often said to be the worst city for parahuman violence, per capita, in the nation. We know the unmasking movement has its obvious weaknesses. But it's something that could have worked in other cities. Maybe it still can. We started in the most dangerous place in the nation to try out this… this _experiment_. Maybe it'll be better elsewhere."

"So you're in favour, then?"

Mrs. Pelham nodded. "In fact, I think it's something we should have done earlier, but now we have good reason to try it. In a better city. One where the police actually outnumber the gangs, instead of the wrong way around. Start the movement where we can build a solid foundation from the bottom up instead of trying to hammer it from the top down."

"Still feels like running away," Vicky said, crossing her arms.

"It's a tactical retreat. The Empire is crumbling. Once it blows over, we can move back."

"I'll give it a shot," Mr. Dallon said, speaking for the first time this evening.

Manchester wasn't too bad. If it wasn't too far away, it wouldn't take long for me to create enough bots to re-connect to my Brockton Bay network. Chances were pretty good if we stayed in-state; New Hampshire didn't have a huge selection of cities anyway. The main issue was Lisa. I needed to be able to continue treating her until she was okay. And since Dragon was taking care of her, I would have to get Dragon to come along as well.

Then again, since Dragon had sent her mobile workshop to Brockton Bay specifically to work with me, it probably wouldn't be too hard to convince her.

"I'm in, as well. I need Dad to be safe," I said.

"Well, school's almost out anyway. It'll be like a long, boring vacation," Eric added.

Everyone else nodded in agreement, some more reluctantly than others.

"I'll make the call to the PRT," Mrs. Dallon said.

* * *

It turned out the PRT had a spot for us in Concord instead of Manchester. Either way, we would be moving in a few days. We just had to watch out until then, since there were still a few flare-ups and random violence by the Empire. But between Abyssal, PRT, and police, we had them mostly contained. There had been a few who truly believed the conspiracy theory that New Wave released the Empire identities as revenge for Fleur – I'd stopped an arson and drive-by shooting attempt overnight already, and I was sure more were to come.

I just needed to tell Dragon where we were going, so that she could bring Lisa along. In fact, I would have to tell my team that I was riding in Dragon's vehicle, so that I could stay in range to keep Lisa alive.

"Hey, Dragon! I don't suppose you've heard the news about New Wave?" I asked as I entered.

"I haven't, actually," Dragon said. "There's been a bit of turmoil happening in the PRT ENE branch as of late. The new director has barred me from connecting to its network and revoked my login."

"What? Why?" I asked. I knew she and Armsmaster collaborated a lot, and since Armsmaster didn't regularly go to Vancouver and Dragon never left her home, the only reasonable assumption was that Dragon remotely connected here. They'd been doing it for years, and the technologically advanced Rig out on the bay was a result of their collaboration. So why would they stop now?

"He cited known instances of information leaks and hacks into the system. Including many instances where prisoner transfers were ambushed and villains taking advantage of internal scheduling. And, well, he's blaming me as one of the possible sources," Dragon said.

"What? You? No way. That's ridiculous." Dragon was the most famous _hero_ in North America, aside from the Triumvirate. She participated in every single Endbringer battle and saved lives. Even though she was definitely _capable_, why would she hack the PRT to help a few crummy villains?

"The problem is I can't even completely deny it. I know the Dragonslayers have been able to hack my own systems before, so they could be piggybacking or spoofing my credentials somehow," she explained. "Either way, I am no longer associated with PRT ENE. Not only that… have you heard about Armsmaster?"

She actually looked a little sad.

"Aside from what happened last night? No," I said. The forums were exploding about the news about how he killed Browbeat. But the PRT was very quiet about what was going to be done about the whole thing. I knew he had gone back to base, and from there, I didn't see anything else.

"Well, Armsmaster has had to… forcibly resign. While there is clear evidence it was the result of villain interference, there is still very little public trust if nobody is punished for something so severe. The rest of the Wards, as well as new recruits, might have a hard time following someone with that kind of stain on their record. I don't think a Protectorate leader has ever killed their subordinate in PRT history, much less a Ward. So, he is no longer a part of the PRT. His equipment and workshop has been confiscated, and even the Armsmaster name doesn't belong to him; it's trademarked by the PRT."

That was even more extreme a reaction than I thought it would be. I thought it might just be a demotion or something. "Oh. Um. That's terrible. Are we sure the director knows what he's doing?"

"Time will tell, I suppose," Dragon replied. "Anyway, what were you going to tell me?"

"Oh, right! The PRT relocation program is getting New Wave to move to Concord for a while after, you know, my house got incinerated. At least until the Empire is taken care of for good," I told her. "I was wondering… would you mind, uh, coming with us? And bringing Lisa along?"

Dragon smiled. "Of course. That's the point of a mobile workshop, isn't it? But… if I may ask… would you mind if I bring Armsmaster along as well? I fear for his well-being if he doesn't have something to work on. A sense of purpose, if you will."

"Sure. I mean, it's your vehicle," I told her.

Things were working out more smoothly than I thought it would be. Now my only issue left was to get as many bots as possible to stretch all the way from Brockton Bay to Concord. I'd need to turn almost all my attention to production, producing more brains, and just stretching a thin line of bots between the two cities. I was doubtful I could actually move them that distance within two days, but at least this way I could minimize the disruption to my network.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

\- I was never quite clear about how much about Dragon was "public knowledge" although she was a pretty famous cape.

\- A lot of people seem to assume Coil's got something against Eunoia but as far as I see him, his goal has always been to "make Brockton Bay better" at least, by his personal definitions.


	37. Interlude 7: Kayden

Interlude 7: Kayden

When Kayden Anders heard that all of the Empire's identities had been revealed online, there was only one thing on her mind.

It wasn't the Empire. She had been trying to distance herself from them for a while already. It was difficult for her, since she had grown up with them her entire adult life. All her friends, and her family, were in there. She was still struggling, as it made her life rather lonely. She had the occasional yearning to re-join, but she held fast to her decision. Now, because of that little bitch Tattletale, her decision was finalized. There wouldn't be much of an Empire left when all this was over, and further association would just be suicide.

It wasn't Max, either. While she had once loved the man, she didn't any more. She was thankful to have had the good luck to actually realize how manipulative he was. He seemed so charming, so powerful, so caring. It hadn't been any single event, and she couldn't remember when she started doubting. But when she began to suspect he only wanted her for her power, it took her over a year to confirm. He never truly loved her. A man like that only loved himself. She didn't know which of the twins he was fucking these days, and she didn't feel any jealousy – only pity. Max would probably throw them under the bus to keep his own skin. Right now, he was more of an enemy than a friend; and his reveal actually hurt him more than her.

It wasn't even herself. She already knew she would lose everything once the news spread. There was no escaping it. But with that bit of hopelessness and panic also came a type of clarity. She had no chance of going back to work tomorrow, so she could just forget that. And she would probably get kicked out of her apartment by the landlord if the PRT didn't try to arrest her first, so she would have to move. But this wouldn't be her first time she'd had to abandon everything. When she left the Empire, she had nothing. The Empire, and Max, had provided everything for her – a home, a job, an income, friendship, safety, purpose. She had restarted from nothing once, and she could do it again.

It was her children. Aster and Theo were the only ones she cared for now. The two children were her world now. They were her new purpose in life. And there was nothing she wouldn't do to protect them. And that was no exaggeration. She had killed people before, and she would be lying to herself if she said she'd never do it again. She was powerful enough that she could stalemate Lung and probably annihilate the local PRT if she needed to. She knew, and she made no illusions about it. Despite attempting to walk the heroic path, she was perfectly willing to drop straight back into the deepest depths of villainy if it meant she could keep her daughter and son.

Max would probably be calling her up for backup right about now, but there wasn't anything he could actually offer her any more. His assets would be frozen, his home searched. The Empire would be at war any minute now, and it wasn't a war they would win. Kayden could see the writing on the wall; she had no business staying in the Bay.

She just needed to get home to her children first.

Abandoning all pretenses, she flew straight out the window from her job, transformed into her unmistakable glowing form. She flew directly home and entered through the balcony. She felt a spike of fear when she saw several armed men standing inside with her children. At first she thought it was the PRT coming to take her children. Aster was crying. Theo was trying to put on a brave face, but on the verge of breaking down himself. Despite her fear, she could feel a swell of pride for the boy.

She couldn't just kill them. Her power wasn't that precise, nor was she fast enough.

"If you hurt them, there won't be enough…" she started to say.

The only one in the room not dressed in combat gear stood up and held up a hand. "Kayden Anders, we're not here to take your children away. In fact, I think you're about to receive a deal of a lifetime. Please. Sit."

Kayden, or Purity as she was now, settled down in her own living room but didn't revert to her normal form. Just to give them an ever-present threat. If she couldn't save her children, at the very least she would have instant revenge, if those men were stupid enough to do it. Those guns weren't PRT-issue. Their uniforms were close, but not exact. They didn't have any containment foam dispensers either. She knew for certain that they were mercenaries, and people didn't exactly complain as loudly when you killed mercenaries in your home.

"What do you want?"

"Allow me to introduce myself. You may call me Mr. Pitter. I'm sure you've heard the news already. And that makes you a woman in need at the moment, Mrs. Anders," the man said. Kayden hated how his voice came out. That smug, smarmy tone he took, the way he continued to use her real name despite staring at the bright light of her cape form… she despised the man already.

"What I _need_ is for you to get the hell out of my house, and I'll _consider_ not killing you."

Mr. Pitter ignored her. "Even if we do nothing at all, you're about to lose your home, your money, and your children, Mrs. Anders. We could leave and let you try to fend for yourself against the US government… or you could allow us to help with that." Taking her silence as interest, he smiled and continued. "You see, my employer needs someone like you. A loving mother. One who truly cares for her children. We would never want to separate you from them. In fact, we want to help you stay together. Give you new identities. A new home. Full custody of your children under your new identity, naturally. And, of course, a new job."

"What kind of job?" Kayden asked. She was expecting assassinations or jailbreaks. Things that Max requested often while dangling divorce settlement concessions in front of her. It was unavoidable, being the most powerful Blaster in the city.

"A nanny."

Kayden paused. She wasn't sure if she heard him correctly. "What?"

"Your job will be to care for your children. And one other."

"That's it?" she asked. It sounded too good to be true. And after dealing with Max so often, she was rather wary of when people said things that _sounded_ nice.

"You will be expected to keep them in good health, of course. And defend them from all others who would seek to take her – as you would for any of your own children. Whether they be other villains, heroes, police. If you lose her, the consequences will be… dire."

Now that sounded a bit more like what a villain expected. They were essentially just asking her to be a permanent bodyguard for a child. She wondered what was so special about this one. Still… a little kid. Whatever these villains were doing with this kid, it couldn't have been good. But wasn't this an opportunity? Give a child a proper, loving home that a villain wouldn't, or couldn't? Then again, it could be a case 53. Or a psychotic kid who could be a danger to Aster.

"Anything else I need to know?" she asked.

"A few limitations. She will be receiving a medical visit every morning. She is not to speak to anyone else before. Do not ask questions about her, do not investigate her identity, do not investigate the treatment. She is not to attend school, or associate with anyone aside from yourself and your family. You are not to use your powers except in defense of your children, nor reveal your own past or identities. Standard conditions for living a new identity. We can discuss pay and other things afterwards, but these conditions are non-negotiable."

"Let me see this girl," Kayden said.

Mr. Pitter nodded. He opened up a laptop that showed the video feed of the girl. She was wearing some kind of Tinkertech collar – most likely a shock collar or something. She was younger than Theo. White. Malnourished. Exhausted. What the hell had these people been doing to her? Seeing the sight of such a pathetic young girl made her motherly instincts instantly jump at the chance to nurture her back to health.

"I'll do it," she said.

"Good. Why don't you get in our van, and we can discuss the details en route to meet her?" Mr. Pitter suggested. "After all, the PRT could be on their way to your home any minute now."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

\- just a mini-update with a short interlude. In case anyone was wondering why Purity wasn't blowing everything up.

\- Funny thing about how Coil seems like he's winning right now, I actually planned a bunch of "win" conditions for him, then a bunch of backups should they fail. I decided to actually make him fail 80% of them and he's running mostly on backup plans at the moment. For example, I'm pretty sure, in-character, he doesn't _want_ to actually be the director of the PRT, because it puts him in the spotlight. He would rather have a stooge there, but it's something he chose in order to avoid something else.


	38. Extension 1

Extension 1

I spent all the time before our move to Concord pre-expanding my bots in the direction of the new city. With nearly every bot I could spare, I was churning through the materials of the local landfill and sending bots migrating west. The materials I needed wasn't really an issue; it was the distance. While I could probably produce enough brains to cover the distance between Brockton Bay and the new city in a day, moving them that distance without being noticed was the real problem. My bots worked best together – moving them individually, they couldn't even match the speed of an ant, a giant group larger than Abyssal could move together at highway speeds. It really was a matter of how much I was willing to risk being noticed. For now, I was moving them in small groups the size of little animals; even if someone caught something from the corner of their eye they probably wouldn't think much of it. I just needed to drop another clone brain every quarter-mile or so to maintain the network.

Physically, I spent most of the day with Lisa, trying to figure out her brain. With very little to pack, I spent most of my day with her after talking with the doctors at the hospital. She was recovering, but not fully conscious. Every once in a while her eyes would open and she might speak a few words, but she was incoherent and not fully cognizant of where she was. And more than once, I messed up a few connections and she would go into a seizure.

I was desperately hoping I was actually helping more than harming her. Sure, I was using my own brain as a general template, but the number of ways to connect and replace a billion neurons was still massive and it was taking a whole lot of trial-and-error.

Dragon was extremely interested and helpful. In fact, she used her computers to help me keep track of what I had tried, being even more accurate and precise than me with a few thousand human-like brains. It seemed like she was happy to gain this research even though it wasn't the main reason she had wanted to collaborate with me.

Amy dropped by after her last shift at the hospital, mostly to maintain Lisa's general health. She also brought along some nutrient solution to keep her fed intravenously.

All that work left me with a little bit less attention to spend on patrolling the streets with Abyssal, but most of the major fighting had died down. I was still dealing with the occasional Empire member or wannabe who was trying to snipe us from our homes, but I tended to catch them so quickly they could barely be charged with a crime. As for the rest of the city, there wasn't much left that the PRT and Protectorate couldn't handle, as Lung was being quiet for now.

In fact, they were out on patrol pretty aggressively – possibly in an attempt to produce more good news after Armsmaster's disastrous mistake. I certainly didn't mind, because it let me concentrate on more immediate issues. Like moving.

* * *

Dragon was understandably precise. She had to be, when she was a tinker who was simultaneously coordinating dozens of factories, monitoring the most secure prison in the world, managing S-class threats around the world, AND still had time to invent new things. And she still had time for me.

When I told her we would be ready at two o'clock, my bots watched the unique, boxy vehicle get into gear at three-fifty, expertly navigate traffic, and pull up in front of the Dallons' home at 1:59. The vehicle stopped and its doors opened at precisely when the numbers on my phone's clock changed over.

"Dad, Dragon's here. I'm going to go ahead, then!" I had briefly mentioned the plan earlier in the day, but I think he may have been distracted. He was leaning against the counter, sandwich in hand, trying to parse the words that had gone into his ears. After we had finished packing and loading, we were all sitting around a bare kitchen, having random leftovers to finish whatever we could out of the fridge.

"Wait, you're getting a ride from Dragon? _The_ Dragon?" Eric exclaimed.

"Yeah, she's outside," I said, pointing my thumb over my shoulder to the street.

Eric rushed to the window to look. He got there just in time to watch the vehicle unfold, parked right behind the moving van. Satellite dishes and antennas rose from the top, the sides expanded, robotic arms stretched out. A door opened from the side to an empty chamber I hadn't seen before.

A small version of Dragon's drone suit stepped out, waving. "Hello, Eunoia. Shielder. And everyone else in New Wave. Eunoia has asked me to be here to help you with moving? The cargo bay of my mobile workshop isn't as large as it seems, but I'm sure it can carry a fair amount of your luggage, if you need it."

"Hi Dragon!" Crystal said, floating out of the house to join her brother. "Umm, would you like anything to drink?"

Dragon laughed. "Sorry, but this suit doesn't drink anything other than coolant and synthetic lubricant," she said. "I can't actually be here, due to my... condition. But thanks for the offer."

I wondered what exactly was the condition she had. I never asked, because it seemed impolite. She was always vague about it. I got the sense she wasn't keen on sharing it, so I didn't push. Maybe she had some kind of immunodeficiency? Or maybe it was psychological. Agoraphobia, maybe? If it was, maybe if I got even better with brain issues, I could help her with that.

"Dragon. Nice to see you here," Mrs. Dallon said. "If I may ask, what are you doing here?"

"Oh, I've been collaborating with Eunoia on a few projects. Since you're all moving, I hope you don't mind if I come along."

"I suppose not. It's always good to see heroes working together," she said. That was honestly the most courteous I'd ever seen her. At least, outside of her professional work. Then again, Dragon commanded a lot of respect.

Dad was just staring. I realized he hadn't responded to me. I nudged him until he got the idea.

"Uh. Yeah. I guess Dragon's pretty trustworthy, huh? Go ahead and ride with your… friend."

"I suppose I should ride with you," Amy said. I got the sense that she just didn't want to be stuck in a car with her family instead of the desire to be in Dragon's workshop. I was glad to have her, though.

"There's probably going to be a lot of tech talk along the way," I warned her.

Amy shrugged. "I don't mind."

"Can I ride too?" Eric asked eagerly.

I paused. I didn't want to show him Lisa as I was operating on her. I gave Dragon a hesitant look, and she seemed to understand quickly. "Sorry. Despite the size of the vehicle, the interior space is quite limited and there is some sensitive equipment inside. Two passengers is probably the limit."

Eric let out a huge sigh and floated back to the house.

* * *

"Have you considered letting the rest of your team know the extent of your abilities?" Dragon asked as the we set out. Amy looked at me as well, interested in my answer.

"Um… eventually. But only when I'm ready. Or, more like, when I'm confident I know what the extent of my abilities actually are," I said. "Amy, how am I doing?"

"I think the signals to the limbs are working properly now. Can you slow down the conduction more? It's still a little too fast. I think it's causing a little overstimulation, and I think the hemispheres of her brain are having problems keeping things synchronized."

"Oh, right," I said. I continued to tweak Lisa's brain for a while. I knew we were close, there were only a few minor things to fix. I couldn't get everything perfect, but hopefully I was close enough and the brain's natural adaptability would do the rest for Lisa's recovery.

"I think this is pretty close. As far as I can tell, her brain activity is close to normal for someone sleeping," Amy told me a few adjustments later. "I'll wake her up."

We all watched as Lisa's eyelids slowly fluttered open. It took several minutes before it looked like she was conscious enough to recognize me.

"Lisa? How are you feeling?" I asked.

"Like shit," she said. I could tell she had a slight lisp now. I think she noticed it herself as well. "What happened to me?" She looked at her own hand like she was seeing it for the first time, opening and closing her fist. Her movements were somewhat jerky and unsure, and I feared I may have done something wrong. I was keeping track of what she was attempting to do, as well as trying to compare the left and right side of her brain to see how much more fine-tuning I needed to do.

"You got shot in the head," I told her.

Lisa opened and closed her mouth a few times without a sound. Then, she said, "Well, in that case, I feel great. What's going on?" She spoke slowly, and the lisp I heard earlier was already being corrected slightly. Seemed like Lisa had to re-learn how to control some of her body. At least that would only take time; the good thing was that she did seem to be thinking straight. I still had some room to make corrections.

"Maybe we should start from the last thing you remember," I said.

"Getting ready to take that fucker out. The, uh… fuck, how did I forget his name? The asshole, you know who…" she struggled slightly. I knew who she was talking about, obviously, but I let her work it out herself to monitor how much the injury had affected her memory and cognitive function.

"Well, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is that I raided all his bases simultaneously and we turned him over to the PRT. The bad news is he released the identities of all of the Empire 88, blamed it on you, and enough people believe it's a secret New Wave revenge plot that we're moving to another city for safety."

"…fuck it, my head hurts too much to use my power. Give me the long version."

It took the rest of the ride to Concord to actually explain what had happened to Lisa.

"There's something very fishy about this," Lisa said. "Let me take a nap… and then food… and coffee… and I'll think about it more." Tired and lethargic as she was, I let her sleep.

Amy and I stepped out of the vehicle in front of our new temporary home. The others were already there. Dragon had driven more slowly than the moving Dallon and Pelham cars, mainly because of the vehicle's size. Despite leaving earlier, the others had arrived first. "Thanks, Amy. I couldn't have done it without you," I told her.

"You know, I didn't have enough time to appreciate when Lisa's not talking," Amy said. "Can you still modify her speech centers?"

"Ha ha. Come on, let's help unpack," I told her. The moving van with most of the cargo was only just starting to pull into the neighbourhood.

The house itself was huge – a duplex, actually. It sat on the western edge of the city, in a neighbourhood that was cheap for the size, but not particularly convenient. No nearby stores, a long way from any schools, and a long walk to the nearest bus stop. That probably contributed to its lower price. It was a spot where you needed your own transport to get around. Not a major issue for a family where most of the members could fly.

There was a lot of room inside – the building was old, but sturdy enough. Dad inspected it as best he could; while he wasn't a homebuilder he had enough basic knowledge to know what to check for. I went over it myself with my bots as well, making sure there wasn't anything catastrophic like leaking pipes or toxic mold or termite-infested columns.

All in all, it was… not much to talk about. Honestly a decent house for something the PRT organized on short notice, and rent was cheap considering the amount of space we were getting. The others were inside already.

"Oh, this room's mine!" we heard Vicky's voice from upstairs.

"Then this one's mine!" Eric yelled.

"What? No, that's gonna be Amy's! You have to choose from the other side!"

"I'm claiming this entire side of the house for the Pelhams! YOU go to the other side!"

I decided to let the two families battle it out and claim territory; I didn't have any problem with taking whatever was left over. On the other hand… if nobody was using the basement, maybe I could take up some of the crawl spaces for bot storage…

* * *

Inside Dragon's workshop, she wasn't wasting any time at all with her tinkering.

"Eunoia, you're still present, correct?"

"**Here**," I told her through my bots.

"Excellent. I'd love to study the design you used to save Lisa. But first things first. I've got replicas of the bots you sent me," Dragon said. "I've made them as precisely as I could manage. Shall we begin the experimentation?"

"**Go ahead**."

Carrying boxes was somewhat mind-numbing, and I was glad to have something to actually think about while repeatedly going back and forth from the van to the house.

Dragon unveiled a tiny clump of bots sitting on a scanning device. "Could you control these bots that I made?" she asked.

I hadn't even noticed the bots were there until she pointed them out. I reached with my power as much as I could, but there was no response. When my own bots wandered through the pile, it was like wading through a pile of dead bodies. The shape, the materials, and other things were correct, they were just… dead. They just didn't work.

"**Nothing. No control**," I told her.

"I see," Dragon said. "Could you check if I made them correctly?"

I dropped a bunch of my own bots on the scanner and had them basically play around and pull apart the bots that Dragon made. As far as I could tell, they were identical, except they were dead to me. Like the difference between a person and a rather warm corpse. Which didn't quite make sense, since the bots were barely more than a clump of molecules, not a huge complex creature.

"**Made correctly**."

"Good to know that my nanobot forge is in working order, at least. We'll just chalk it up to 'powers' for now," Dragon said. "That makes our collaboration slightly more difficult, but there's still a lot we can do together. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to study how you control the bots first. It's the main issue I've been having with my own designs. I've got a broad-spectrum wave analysis scanner here, so if you just control the nanobots on the scanner as I tell you…"

I moved the bots around on the scanner, getting them to do a few laps and other simple movements. Dragon kept switching the settings over and over, but got nothing but noise. Despite all the failure, Dragon had a knowing smile. "Don't worry, Taylor. Reverse-engineering other Tinkertech is my specialty."

At that point, Lisa woke up again. She yawned and stretched out her body. Again I noted odd asymmetries and reduced control on one side of her body. "Well, that was a good nap. How's it going with the Tinkerettes?"

"Taylor's inside the house at the moment. We're still experimenting," Dragon told her.

"Ugh. Where's the nearest cup of coffee around here?" Lisa asked.

A machine emerged from the wall near the desk. I heard the sound of flash-boiled water.

Lisa stared. I would have stared if I had been in there. "You have a coffee machine in this thing? But you aren't even here in-person!"

Dragon seemed almost embarrassed. "I was expecting to work with Armsmaster on occasion. He's very picky with his coffee."

Lisa took the fresh-made cup and took a sip. "Huh. He's got good taste. I like mine with a bit more sugar though. Speaking of which, what happened to him? You mentioned a friendly fire incident?"

"I can't give you many details, because I don't have them. Armsmaster was fired from the Protectorate. Dropped completely. My access to the PRT ENE was revoked for potential security concerns," Dragon said.

Lisa rubbed her head, then stopped when her hand went over the scar tissue of the bullet wound. "Wait. That's such a disproportional response. There was clear villain interference."

"I think so too, but it's still within the director's rights. Brockton Bay has always been on the extreme end of parahuman issues, and extremes may become the new normal for that city."

"No… there's something more to it," Lisa said. "What happened to the girl that we saved?"

"Taken into PRT custody," Dragon said. "After that, I don't know."

"But not the hospital? The PRT medical bay wouldn't have what they needed for her. That's more for field injuries and such."

"**Never in hospital. Or Panacea**," I confirmed. While I didn't work at the Children's Hospital, I did maintain watch with my bots and hadn't seen her brought there either.

"And no news about Dinah Alcott? Mayor hasn't said anything?"

"Dinah Alcott remains listed as missing. What are you thinking, Lisa?" Dragon asked.

"That girl was Dinah Alcott. I'm certain of it. Oh, fuck, this is worse than I thought," Lisa said. "Can you show me a picture of the new PRT ENE director? His whole body, if you have one?"

Dragon did one better and showed multiple photos of the new director and a video of him giving a short speech on stage as well.

"God damnit. Coil is the director. We caught a body double," Lisa said.

"What?" Dragon was surprised.

"**WHAT**?" Even I felt the need to shout through my bots.

"Armsmaster was getting fired one way or another, as soon as possible. He just needed an excuse. He also took Dinah and moved her somewhere else, probably outside the city. You've been locked out as well, because all the incriminating evidence in there is on the PRT servers. I bet he's deleted them already, but either you or Armsmaster have the ability to recover deleted data. That's why he needed you gone," Lisa said.

"I need to contact Armsmaster about this. Are you sure, Lisa?" Dragon asked.

"As certain as I can be. Unless, of course, Eunoia messed up my brain completely," she joked. I wasn't nearly as amused, but I double checked her brain activity again to be sure.

* * *

For most of the team, the cape-life was temporarily taking a back seat to life-life. Getting settled into our new home, cleaning things up, shopping for groceries, figuring out our directions, making sure our utilities all worked – that was going to take up our first few days. Couldn't fight crime without a warm shower to come back to, after all. Lady Photon and Brandish also had to work out the proper registration and other paperwork for independent hero patrols in the city. They were trying to sort out a schedule and route with the local police, as well as meeting with the major hospitals to figure out a visit schedule for me and Panacea.

While the others could easily fly off and explore our new neighbourhood on their own, Amy and I were mostly stuck at our new home until the bureaucracy was sorted out. I had the benefit that there was plenty of work for me to do with Dragon, who was parked right in front of our door.

Amy insisted on a checkup with Lisa – probably out of sheer boredom. I suspected part of it was just so that she could surf the internet using one of Dragon's computers. Our home internet still hadn't been connected; the service guy wasn't booked until tomorrow.

Lisa hadn't left the workshop, and I couldn't blame her for being paranoid. The fewer people who knew she had survived, the better. Dragon herself was interested in Lisa's recovery just as much. She was of great help, too, giving Lisa random exercises and video games that tested her perception and memory, helping her ease back to normal and finding possible faults in her memory and brain function for me to fix.

Meanwhile, there were several things for me to manage simultaneously. First, I was rapidly expanding my network of bots between here and Brockton Bay. In my rush to expand my control to Concord as fast as possible without losing control during the move, I had to stretch my control as thin as I could, literally. In some parts along the highway, there were long lengths and regions where brains were essentially lined up in single file at their maximum range from each other. A single car crash or lightning strike or other random event could completely knock out my control of everything in Brockton Bay. I had to fix that right away and make sure there was some redundancy, so most of my bots were focused on replication.

Secondly, I had to keep watch on Lisa to make sure I hadn't made any long-term mistakes. I would be "finalizing" my bot configuration soon, completely locking them into their functions and relinquishing all my control over them. I needed to be sure I had things right first.

Lastly, Dragon was eager to continue tinkering. Funnily enough, Lisa was happy to join in and help. Not that she had much else to do while she hid in the workshop. Dragon let her borrow a computer and internet connection, but she wouldn't allow her to use any of it for illegal activity – like hacking the PRT servers, or retrieving confidential bank records. Lisa was basically limited to searching for publicly-available information that supported her theory, which was quite sparse.

"Well, is there anything I could help you with? I mean, we worked together pretty well against Behemoth," Lisa said hopefully.

"Maybe a non-Tinker perspective may help. I'm still trying to determine the control method that Eunoia uses for her bots," Dragon said. "Does any of this make sense?" She showed Lisa all the data and graphs of all the readings she attempted to make on my bot-control.

Lisa answered quickly. "It's a Master ability, not Tinkertech that controls them, Dragon. This isn't something you can just figure out."

Dragon sighed. "Well, I was hoping there would still be some measurable signal I could lock on to. Powers aren't inherently inexplicable, they're just more exotic than we've been used to. My next guess is some kind of hyperfold-space signal, but this mobile lab doesn't have the right sensors."

"Well, what do you want to do next?" I asked.

"I suppose we can focus on the multitasking ability. How much has it enhanced your abilities?"

"A lot, but I haven't really measured it," I explained. "I definitely learn faster. I can read a bunch of books simultaneously and remember them more clearly. Fighting crime as while performing neurosurgery isn't much of an issue."

"Ah, I see. Abyssal was spotted fighting the Empire in multiple locations during your known work hours at the hospital. It definitely killed a few forum theories about you and Abyssal."

"Wait, what?" I thought that I had been pretty careful keeping our identities separate, especially with Lisa's help. I didn't even realize there was enough suspicion for an online discussion, aside from Dragon.

"Don't worry about it, Taylor," Lisa said, waving her hand dismissively. "The PHO forums are full of crackpot theories all the time. You know, the PRT is full of lizard people, Scion is an alien, New Wave is a secret government cape breeding program, Alexandria is actually Chief Costa-Brown, that sort of thing."

"Ignoring that, how difficult is it to do that, and how many bots did you need to achieve it?" Dragon asked.

"Oh, that's not even close to my limit," I said. "I didn't want to put any patients in danger. The main issue was the range, and it takes, I dunno, about ten billion of them to extend my range every quarter-mile."

"Thank you. If you make a fully-formed brain, can it think independently?" Dragon asked.

I paused. Dragon was a genius, and it really didn't take her long to extrapolate and figure things out. Now, how much should I tell her? "It's hard to explain. Here, let me show you," I said. I pulled enough bots from my costume and set them in front of the table, and recreated another one of my clone brains. "It's not exactly thinking on its own. I mean, I get thoughts from it, but it's in my own voice, you know? Kind of like... when you're deciding what to have for lunch and you talk to yourself internally? I just get more of that. It's not completely independent, just more of my own thoughts. And if I lose control of it, it goes completely inert. I figured that out when we went to Spain."

I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that Dragon understood immediately. "Ah, it's much like the left and right hemisphere theory. Each half of your brain can seem to have different personalities and even goals, and yet in the end they are harmonized and you never consciously notice the interactions between them, except in specific neurological cases."

"Oh yeah, I read about those," I said. People who had the corpus callosum cut could literally have the left half of the body disagree with the right half sometimes. Definitely one of the weirder things I came across during my research, although the stuff I had been doing with Dr. Kardon wasn't focusing on that.

"Well, it looks like you're basically adding more hemispheres. They might actually be capable of independent thought, and yet they remain a part of you and your personality."

"But this new design that you used for me, you made it so they _could_ work on their own, right?" Lisa asked, tapping her head. "What if you made a whole entire brain out of this type of bot?"

The only brain I was confident in fully copying at the moment was my own. And what would happen? A fully independent version of myself? What would I do? What if I _actually_ disagreed with myself? I wasn't ready for philosophy and ethics in the morning; I was here to design better miniature robots.

The "good" thing was that I had designed them with Amy, and they weren't capable of being completely independent. They still depended on a biological body, blood, oxygen, glucose, and other things.

But still…

"I don't think I'm ready to do that just yet," I told them. "I like them being either a part of me, or a part of someone else. I don't think I want to create an entirely new life form just yet."

"Well, I'm not advocating that you do, but it's still something I think we should study more," Dragon declared. "This is definitely a very interesting... a very..."

Her voice glitched for a second, the screens flickered, and the bot froze for a split second, but everything went back to normal just quickly. "Ah, sorry. Connection issues. Do you want to take a look at some of the ideas I've had?"

Amy looked up for the first time. She hadn't seemed very interested in Tinkering, but the interruption to her cat videos was something she noticed.

"Dragon? What happened?" Lisa asked. "You sure it was just a connection issue?"

"Yes, it happens occasionally. Now, let's get back to business. What were we talking about again? Right, I'd like you to take a look at this nanobot-based weapon I was designing with Armsmaster."

"Wait, weren't we-" I started to say, wondering why Dragon wanted to change the subject from brain-bots to weapon-bots. She hadn't been in a huge rush for the past few days.

But Lisa shushed me really quickly and interrupted. "Right, right. Damn cell signals suck in this area, ha ha." She gave me a _look_ implying I should play along, so I did. Amy looked even more confused.

* * *

"Anyone nearby?" Lisa asked as she tried to sneak through the house, while I walked through normally. I brought her to my room, where I still didn't have a mattress yet. Dad was looking into buying some along with Mr. Pelham. We sat down on the carpet, each of the three of us leaning against a different wall.

"No, it's just us," I confirmed. "Now what's going on?"

"Just have to get away from Dragon for a while. Can she hear us?"

"I'm pretty sure she can't from here. I don't see any listening devices from her. Why? Do you think she's going to turn you in or something?" Dragon had been very nice about it, and outright helpful with Lisa. Even so, I had enough experience with girls that put up a friendly front to stab you in the back.

"No, not exactly. I think she's under a Master effect. A subtle one. Or she's under duress, but hiding it. I don't know exactly what it is, but I'm going to figure it out."

"Dragon? Mastered?" Amy asked. "As far as I know, she seemed normal. I've worked with her more than you have. I think you're overly paranoid, it was probably an actual tech glitch."

"That doesn't explain her short term memory loss. And I don't think it's recent, or sudden. I bet it's the kind that takes months or years. It changes the person so slowly it's hard to say that they're 'out of character' or anything like that. It just becomes who they are."

"That's… I can't imagine," Amy said absently.

"Sure you can, it's probably exactly what's happening to you-" Lisa said, then clapped her hands to her mouth.

"What are you implying?" Amy said, her voice rising in anger.

"Nothing! Fuck, forget I said anything."

"This is about Vicky, isn't it?"

"I'll be honest, I do feel a light pressure to… _like_ her more when I'm near her," I admitted. Thankfully my other brains weren't affected, and thousands of them were able to help me 'correct' for those minor emotional differences as soon as the effect wore off.

"I'm not… Vicky isn't Mastering me!" Amy shouted defensively. She backed away and ran down the hallway.

"You really think so? Are you sure?" I asked.

"Dragon or Amy?" Lisa muttered.

"Both."

"Amy, I'm sure. Dragon? Just a hunch. I got too much shit on my plate right now," Lisa said, sinking her head to her knees. I didn't know what to do other than pat her on the back.

"Just let me know what you want me to do. I'm the multitasker, remember?" I said. "On that note, I'm starting to keep watch on Director Calvert. Anything I else I should be tracking?"

"Well, look for the kidnapped girl, but I bet he's already taken her to some other hidden place," Lisa said. "The problem is finding evidence we can use. Dragon's willing to help but only if we do things by the book. Anything that doesn't stick, it'll backfire on us when a PRT director claims a villain is planting evidence, and tosses everything out because we acquired it illegally."

"Sit tight, we'll find something eventually," I told her.

"Well, I guess I should go back and hide with Dragon," Lisa said. "The family should be coming back home for lunch."

We went back outside to find Amy sitting with Dragon, chatting. I guess she didn't have anyone else to talk to if she was mad at Lisa… and me.

"…it's simply a matter of statistics," Dragon was saying. "I am only one person, and I can only do one thing at a time. Even if I was able to leave my home, I could only save one person at a time by patrolling out on the street. By mass-producing self-driving technology, I can save nearly a million lives per year from traffic collisions, if everyone adopted it."

"But wouldn't everyone be scared if they thought you were Mastered?" Amy asked. "All those things under your control…"

"Ah, they aren't under my control. That's the important part. I just manufacture them, or license out the technology," Dragon said. "Even if I were Mastered, at most people would only take control of a few remote-control suits."

"Right. Never mind," Amy said.

"Don't worry, Amy. Power jealousy is a common condition among capes and non-capes alike. Your power is quite unique and quite powerful. The fact that you've saved anyone at all already makes you a hero. Even I have very little in the way of medical tech. We need to cover each other's bases."

"Yeah. Nice talking to you, Dragon. I'm going to go lie down," Amy said as she left. She didn't speak a word to Lisa as she passed by.

"Very well. Welcome back, Lisa and Taylor. Ready for more research?" she asked innocently.

We both nodded together. We both knew that our research would involve a whole lot more about Dragon herself, as well as Coil or nanobots.

* * *

**Author's Notes**:

Man, it's been a super-busy week for me.

I guess this is mostly a set-up chapter, which I always feel like I have a hard time doing satisfactorily. I always feel like I'm trying to do too much and not enough at the same time.


	39. Extension 2

Extension 2

"Eunoia, would you be alright if I invited someone else over to work with us?" Dragon asked. Her voice seemed quite cautious and guarded. I didn't really know why, because this was _her_ workshop, even though it was parked in front of the combined New Wave's home.

"Sure, who is it?" I asked.

"You may know him as Armsmaster, although that name is being retired," Dragon said. "He's been... having a rough time after his dismissal from the Protectorate. I think some group Tinkering might be therapeutic for him."

I hadn't gotten along well with him the few times I met him. He had been one of my childhood heroes, but when he had let me down so hard with regards to Sophia, my opinion of him had crashed down further than if he had just been a nobody. But Dragon still thought well of him, and she had been a really nice person, and she knew him better than I did.

Maybe I had overreacted. He wasn't fully responsible for what had happened with Sophia, just a part of it. Blackwell and Sophia herself deserved most of the blame there. Not only that, he wasn't part of the Protectorate any more... at least he wouldn't be "taking me in" for questioning or whatever.

"Sure, why not," I said. First impressions lasted longer than they should.

"Thank you so much," Dragon said. "He'll be coming over soon."

Two hours later, a very different man to what I had expected arrived.

On a cheap scooter, for one thing. No iconic rumble of the blue super-bike. No crazy tinker modifications. Just a little vehicle barely capable of highway speeds.

No power armour, either. He just had a basic mask on, dressed in clothing that only went well together due to being utterly plain and loose-fitting. It wasn't even blue. His mask left his beard revealed, which wasn't trimmed to the iconic shape that was as iconic as his suit. The rest of his outfit was just as scraggly and unkempt as his beard, despite a clearly muscular and well-toned body underneath.

"Dragon?" He asked as he walked up to the parked workshop.

"Hello, Armsmaster. You should say hello to Eunoia and Lisa; this is the temporary home of New Wave," Dragon reminded him. "…have you decided on a new name yet?"

"What does it matter any more? Just call me Colin. I don't even have the rights to that name," he said. He sounded completely defeated. Not even bitter. I think he was past the bitterness phase and into hopelessness.

"Ar- Colin, please. I know you've got it in you. Now at least say hello to someone, you haven't had a proper conversation with anyone for a week," Dragon said, almost like a mother.

"Armsmaster was my life," he said. "It's not like _Colin_ has even truly existed for the past decade. It's as much a secret identity as any. My true identity has been taken from me."

"Um. Hello, Colin," I said cautiously.

"Hello," he said listlessly. This was the complete opposite of what I had experienced and heard of him. Gruff and direct, bold to the point of being overconfident… I saw none of that here. Was all that confidence brought on from the power armour?

"Um. So, I'm working with Dragon on nanobots. I know that's not like your halberd or armour, but maybe we could incorporate them into a new one?" I pointed out hopefully.

He winced as I said that. "Property of the Protectorate. Built using their funding, so they have the rights to keep it all. I can't remake them."

I could relate. If I had suddenly lost all my bots, that would be depressing. Having to rebuild from nothing, starting from zero again. But for me, zero was only half a year ago. For Armsmaster... it had been a decade of work, or more. I don't really know when he started.

"I have most of your designs saved. If you modify them enough, you'll be able to get around the intellectual property and trademark laws," Dragon told him.

"Actually, what you'll really want to do is build the designs you always wanted but the Protectorate refused to approve," Lisa pointed out.

"I'm still not sure if I want to be a hero right now," he replied.

"Of course you still do. You're just still trying to wrap your head around the fact that there are heroes outside of the Protectorate. Wait, no... it's that you still don't think that there are villains within the Protectorate. You have a hard time believing _corruption_ is a thing outside of Master/Stranger situations, especially to this extent," Lisa said, her eyes boring into his. Uh-oh, she was in full Thinker mode right now. "It's because of Hero, isn't it. You idolized him, and he was one of the founding members. You couldn't believe that his creation could turn into something so _foul,_ and that you were a contributing factor. A pawn in their game_._"

"Lisa, that's enough," Dragon said.

"Aren't you interested in fixing it?" Lisa said slyly.

Colin gave her a calculating look, but said nothing.

"Colin, take your time. We've been working on the Nanothorn project and the Protectorate doesn't have any rights over that. We've made great strides already. Just focus on one thing at a time."

* * *

There was a huge flurry of development between the two of us as we focused on how to make different modifications and variants of nanobots. While Colin didn't participate as much at the beginning, I think Dragon was acting extra-Tinkery in hopes to break him out of his funk. Lisa mostly stayed out of the way, continuing to use Dragon's computer to do more research on Coil/Calvert, the Empire, the criminal elements in the city of Concord, among other things.

While I had originally used my diamond-edged bots like a nano-chainsaw to slice through things, the goal was to have so many of them that we could use them like a continuous stream while expending all of their energy and cutting capacity with first contact. What Dragon wanted was something even more powerful – a harder-than-diamond boron nitride variant, combined with a small plasma arc to further soften whatever the target was made of. Endbringers were tough and the fights didn't last long, so a high-powered burst was the primary strategy.

Dragon had been teaching me to make these new bots of her design, because I could get them actually working faster then she could. She had the theoretical models, but she still hadn't figured out the control and coordination systems. With my Master ability, I helped her test the functional parts of the bots. I just attached a blocky "blank spot" to each bot that Dragon would fill in later with an antenna or something. She was still working on it, and being hopefully optimistic about its size.

That said, we still made many variants. There were many different variables to understand, like the largest possible size of control module that wouldn't interfere with function. Or, the maximum output capacity given certain energy storage systems. And varying shapes, shifting the ratio of energy that went to physical impact versus plasma arcs.

For me, I doubted I would put this particular bot to much use. While it was clearly a powerful cutting tool, it was also hyper-specialized. At most, I would incorporate secondary elements of it into my own designs. I liked the convenience of my bots, which could be repurposed as Abyssal, surgery tools, armour, clothing, surveillance, manufacturing more bots, among other things. Sometimes it was good to have a few specialty tools around, but it would be easier to manufacture them on-site when I needed them. Even so, all the experimentation and innovation that Dragon brought certainly inspired further improvements for my own bots.

When Colin finally joined in with some of his own ideas, he proposed many ways of increasing functionality; more specialized systems integrated into an already-tiny bot. It reminded me of his iconic halberd, which integrated a blade, a stun gun, grappling hook, teleportation system, tranquilizer dispenser, and probably a dozen other functions all integrated into the handle. I guess that was just his style of Tinkering.

At the same time, Dragon kept testing simple bots, but kept the blueprints for every single one of them. Instead of having everything integrated, her strategy would rely on having enough of each type. The line of thinking was that if we needed to construct bots faster, she could produce them en masse at her factories. Short-term, it would be faster, and possibly quicker to tailor to whichever Endbringer was attacking on short notice. If Behemoth was attacking, a radiation-hardened bot would be used. Simurgh, a high-speed version with a micro-rocket. Leviathan, ones with cilia-like fins for navigating through water. And so on.

It was way more complicated than I liked. I wanted to go simpler. The simpler they were, the easier they were to make, and the better I could control them. I didn't need every bot to have powerful functionality, I could reconfigure them differently. Then again, I was designing this for Dragon, and I only needed to adapt the parts that I wanted to keep for myself.

* * *

For a few days, I stopped working with Dragon in-person as often. Mainly because New Wave was starting to get into a patrol schedule, while Amy and I had gotten approved positions at hospitals. The work itself was actually kind of boring – despite the glowing recommendations and references from Brockton Bay General, Concord Hospital's administration was cautious and only allowed me and Panacea the most basic of procedures for now.

Otherwise, the rest of my days were mostly filled up with covering more of Concord with my bots, spreading more through Brockton Bay, and filling the space in between as well. I was monitoring Director Calvert, while searching for a child matching the description of Dinah Alcott. So far, I still hadn't found anything particularly incriminating. Lisa was doing similar, searching the internet and news for clues, but with Dragon's constraints on hacking, she was getting limited results as well.

Amy was bored too, and frustrated. She saw tons of patients she could heal, but for now, the hospital didn't even allow her to. She came home with few people to rant to. The rest of her family couldn't relate very well, because the police and local PRT station were glad to have help. So she tended to drop in on us. Lisa was happy to chat, given how little progress she was making, while Dragon didn't mind the interruption to Tinkering.

Since I still didn't want to reveal Abyssal to Colin just yet, he was only invited to come work while I was there in-person as well. He probably would have preferred to just _live_ there inside Dragon's workshop, but I think Dragon was making him come and go to make sure he got a little more social interaction. I actually looked forward to these meetings. Not so much because of Colin, but because the rest of my days were so boring. I think Amy felt the same.

Despite the roomy house that we were parked next to, everyone had ended up gathering here within Dragon's workshop. Four people inside this thing was definitely cramped; and I was glad for once that Dragon wasn't physically here.

"Perhaps it's because of my condition," Dragon was saying to Amy while I worked on the next batch of bots.

"What do you mean?" Amy said.

"Well, because I can't go and meet people in person, I have to perform my heroism another way. The constraints I have actually led to some more creative solutions."

"But it's not like it's slowed you down. I've seen what you do at helping at Endbringer battles."

"Oddly enough, if you count by the number of lives saved, my Endbringer participation is pretty far down the list," Dragon admitted.

"Oh? What would you rank above it?"

"Food bank statistical reallocation software."

"What?" Amy hadn't heard of it. Neither had I.

"People need food to live. Food distribution is inadequate, not just after a major disaster, but systemically. On the other hand, some forms of food are unsellable primarily because they are nearing the sell-by date. Food banks rarely have healthy, fresh food because they are unable to store things long-term and ensure they are distributed. So, I created some software that can re-allocate unsold produce to food banks, sort them by each food bank's usage and distance, and predict the needs with ninety percent accuracy. Less waste, more people fed. I believe that system has saved the lives of more than ten times the number I've saved using the Endbringer communication system."

"Huh."

"It's not flashy. Most people who depend on the food banks don't know about it, and it doesn't matter. A life saved is a life saved," Dragon said.

"I see."

"Self-driving software would be higher on the list, but cars themselves are expensive and it hasn't been adopted widely yet. Though I still estimate it's saved a few thousand people per year already," Dragon said. "Really, working with large, statistical problems isn't glamorous but the fact is, if you want to maximize lives saved… you have to do some math."

"God, that makes healing a single person at a time sound pointless," Amy said glumly.

"Don't look at it that way. You've definitely had a profound effect on thousands of people that my own systems could never match," Dragon said. "We each have our own specialties. I'm more inclined to solve the 'wide' problems while you seem to be extremely effective at 'narrow' issues. I just have to look at the math to figure out which problem to tackle next."

"So, according to math, what's the leading killer worldwide?" Amy asked.

"Age," Dragon said. "Well, only partly joking there. But I believe cardiovascular disease and cancer are up there, even higher than communicable disease. Then there's nutritional deficiencies. Psychological and neurological issues is next. Even including Endbringers, injury and trauma is actually pretty far down the list, though it's hard to separate out confounding issues."

"Confounding issues?"

Lisa was the one that answered for Dragon. "A lot of things affect each other. For example, poor nutrition leads to poor health. Poor health leads to poor performance. Poor performance leads to loss of job. Loss of job leads to desperation. Desperation leads to crime, which leads to injury, psychological issues, drug abuse… so what's the real cause of death? The numbers don't lie, but they don't tell you the whole truth either."

"So basically, we shouldn't all switch to fixing heart disease," I said, partly as a joke. I mean, I could, with a little more study. But Amy could do that herself. Where should I really have put my efforts? Farming? I'd picked a brain specialty only out of interest.

"Well, the world isn't linear," Dragon pointed out. "We can't just focus on one issue at a time. If everyone simply devoted all their efforts on the number one problem, all the other problems would quickly get worse. We need everyone to work on different things simultaneously, even if they aren't the number one problem."

That was a bit of a relief to me, hearing that from Dragon.

"Ugh. I'm going to take a nap," Amy said. "See you at dinner."

* * *

Each day, we tested several designs, none of which seemed to be the breakthrough we needed. I certainly learned a lot more with Dragon doing some hands-on guidance; I could make my bots smaller, stronger, and more efficient, but they were just slightly improved versions of what I already had. There were no remarkably game-changing alterations.

Amy, surprisingly, was the key despite not being a Tinker herself. While she couldn't figure out the minutiae of Tinkertech, her alternate perspective was the major shift we needed. Score one for thinking outside the box. To her the solution was obvious.

Proteins.

Just a simple suggestion like that. Proteins performed millions of functions within the human body. Billions more if you looked to all of life on Earth. Nature's own version of nanomachines. And yet they all were manufactured the same way; they all had the same general backbone. Their differences came from little attachments and their different shapes, folding in on themselves in various ways. To someone with a healing power who understood all this intuitively, the answer for her was obvious.

I realized this was probably the key to a revolutionary jump I had been searching for. My bots had more or less stagnated at the size of small cells; this would allow me to jump all the way down to molecular sizes.

Dragon had shown me how to create carbon nanotubes reliably. We needed some further modifications on top of that, but If I forced them to fold one way, I could get them to do one thing, and if I told them to fold a different way I could get them to do another function. I could see it happening. A single bot with an even simpler body but with even more possibilities.

Dragon, on the other hand, wasn't overly concerned with having multi-purpose bots. She preferred specialization over flexibility. After all, she owned multiple factories around all of North America. If she needed a different design, she could just create a whole new assembly line. But the Nanothorn still had multiple functions it needed to actually do its job – basically, cutting, moving, and coordinating. So the development was still useful to her.

Dragon was nice enough to dedicate multiple servers to protein folding simulations, re-adapted to nanotube-folding simulators. Apparently this was something that had already been researched ages ago for medical science, although it had been dropped as more bio-tinkers were discovered, able to instinctively invent highly specialized medicines or other drugs. Still, some people who were attempting to mass-manufacture those bio-tinker products had kept at it; Dragon and the Guild definitely had some resources dedicated to finding some kind of mass-producible universal medical salve.

With Dragon running simulations, I was able to easily build and configure the bots to what seemed like promising candidates. And whenever I created and tested a successful configuration, Dragon would borrow the essential elements, minus the versatility, and make a version that could withstand the extreme power and pressures of an Endbringer battle.

Even though I wasn't purely a Tinker, I think I understood what people called a Tinker Frenzy. Same with Lisa. All of us bouncing ideas off each other drove us to work even harder, sparking even more creativity and determination to see the job done. We were actually ahead of schedule in optimizing the Nanothorn design, all while replacing my own bots with an improved version as well.

Dragon was right though; it was amazing to be able to bounce designs off each other in-person, crafting and designing things together. Even Lisa had taken to throwing an idea at us once in a while, while Amy still hung out occasionally.

* * *

What I was allowed to do at the hospital was still limited. So was Amy, but it affected me less. That was because hospital work was only one of many things I was doing.

Like in Brockton Bay, I was still fighting crime. Honestly, there wasn't all that much for me to do. Abyssal patrolled around to prevent crime occasionally, but even while I searched for my bots, there wasn't much. Cape-wise, at least. There were still the usual drunken brawls, robberies, vandalism, and stuff like that. Those hadn't changed. But the Merchants had been driven underground, and possibly chased out of the city. I didn't hear a peep from Squealer's monster trucks, so either she had an extremely advanced stealth system, or it wasn't anywhere within a five-mile radius.

In short, I felt like I didn't have a whole lot left to do. Even without New Wave, and the loss of Armsmaster and Browbeat, it seemed like the PRT hadn't slowed down. In fact, they seemed to be doing better than ever. I mean, aside from the fact that a villain was the director, but the Empire hadn't been able to rebound, but the ABB didn't seem to be expanding rapidly either.

Of course, I was messing around with their operations plenty. Destroying their drug and weapon stocks was easy. Their resources were going down the drain; even among other criminals their reputations were being tarnished. Selling cocaine that was completely ineffective, as if they had been cut with powdered sugar, even made the drug dealers mad at their suppliers. Weapons that were brought to fights were little more than hunks of metal, causing them to lose fights embarrassingly to people who brought knives to gun fights. The remaining tatters of the gangs were withering away.

Except for the ABB. They had not been overly reliant on the drug trade, but still had decent cash flow through prostitution and extortion. That was harder to influence, though I could stop the violence. Sure, revenue was down, but not nearly as severe as the Merchants. Lung was an ever-present threat that even I still couldn't stop.

Coil seemed to be planning something to deal with him – and as much as I wanted to drag him out of the office and make him "disappear" mysteriously, I had to admit he was actually doing his job for some reason, and he had the resources to take down Lung after all. Besides, it would be better to _actually_ pin him with a crime so he wouldn't be remembered as a hero.

Meanwhile in Concord, I was still spreading through the city. New Wave was beginning its patrols, and the police gave them crime-maps to show them which areas of the city were hotspots. I followed the same maps to know where to spread my bots to first, while also looking for local sources of raw material to make more bots.

I also didn't want to actually use Abyssal here, either. It would be a little too obvious if Abyssal just happened to follow me to a different city. So while I used my bots here in this city, I had to only give some subtle help to the police. Make criminals trip, or slip randomly. Make guns malfunction. For violent ones, I had to use the knock-them-unconscious-via-bloodstream trick, but often that left them with a lesser charge, or no arrest at all. It was hard to charge a criminal with assault when they mysteriously fell asleep before actually hitting anyone.

Those that I stopped with witnesses around, though, led to easier arrests. Nobody investigated too much as to why a criminal "accidentally" slipped or tripped conveniently. New Wave's first patrols were actually very successful – partly because some criminals hadn't heard the news that New Wave was here, and partly because I made the captures easier. Mainly, Brandish was just happy that Glory Girl hadn't caused thousands in collateral damage on their first night out. The whole family was in good spirits.

That is, except for Amy. It seemed to cause her to distance herself even more. Right now, she was sulking somewhat in the backyard. She wasn't reading or listening to music, but instead… playing with some weeds? No, wait, she seemed to be messing around with some plants.

I didn't know she could do that.

As much as I wanted to ask her about it, I decided to give her time. I'd kept my "other" abilities secret from them for so long, it was only fair to wait for her to come out when she was ready to tell me herself.

* * *

I wasn't sure what took longer, me getting used to Colin visiting, or him getting used to working with us. It was clear that Dragon was his one island of stability, he latched on to her like a drowning man to a life preserver. He was at his most agreeable when he was working, and by most agreeable I meant that he was laser-focused on his work and only spoke to discuss further designs. Otherwise he was fairly irritable, especially when he left for the day.

I was surprised that Colin actually put down his tools. He had just finished a rudimentary power armour frame, a new halberd, and a helmet with sensors and displays. I thought he would work twenty-four hours a day if he had the chance. Technically I didn't need to sleep, but Lisa and Dad did; so we closed up shop at night. He was looking straight at me, looking as uncomfortable as I was from his stare.

"Eunoia. Taylor. I would like to... discuss a few past events," he said.

"Uh... what about?" I asked.

"Shadow Stalker," he said. "After Browbeat's death, I have been thinking of her a lot. I am starting to consider that Browbeat is not the first Ward death under my command, even though she was no longer a Ward at the time, I feel some responsibility for her."

I froze. I suddenly felt trapped. I knew Dragon was good friends with him, definitely far closer to him than to me. Dragon had complete control over the workshop we were sitting inside. I needed to gather my bots in case he tried something, Abyssal could break me out if they tried to trap me. The compact workshop suddenly felt cramped, claustrophobic. I'd killed one of his former Wards and everyone knew how prideful he had been of being their leader and guardian. Maybe he'd been attempting to find the right opportunity to strike, now that he had a working weapon -

I was instinctively forming Abyssal behind me but I didn't have enough bots inside of the vehicle.

"Taylor... we're allies now," Dragon reminded me over the room's speakers. "I believe it would be better for cohesiveness if we just understood each other's pasts better. Don't let any hidden bitterness hold us back. We're all on the same side. I know the two of you haven't had the best working relationship prior to this."

"We never _really_ worked together," I admitted. "I avoided the Protectorate."

"You did initially come to the Protectorate though, correct?" Colin said. "I remember reviewing the camera footage after someone didn't show up for their appointment. You were there for a few minutes, and changed your mind."

I nodded. "Yeah. I was going to join the Wards, but when I realized Sophia was there, I knew I'd just be bullied there _and_ at school."

Colin sighed and sat down, resting his elbows on the workbench. He didn't look at me was he spoke, staring at his tools instead. "I would like to say that I watched over all my Wards, but that would be a lie. I have difficulty telling the difference between friendly teasing and bullying. Two of my own Wards were feeling bullied by Shadow Stalker, and I didn't even realize. As hard as it is to admit... I think you made the right choice."

Even Lisa turned to look at him curiously. Was it so out of character for Armsmaster – no, Colin – to admit that? I didn't know him well enough.

"There are merely a few things I want to know, to settle my conscience," he said. "On the day of Shadow Stalker's death… how did you find her?"

"_She_ found _me_. She was trying to kill Lisa," I said defensively, pointing at my friend sitting on the other side of the workshop.

"She's telling the truth," Dragon assured him. I wondered if she had some lie-detection capability, and how accurate it was. Then again, she may have had access to the data at the time it happened.

"I understand. So she had time to find you herself, before we could even find her," Colin said with frustration. "I should have been able to track her down, diverted more manpower after her escape."

Lisa answered him. "Coil. He hired the Travellers to break her out, in order to make the PRT look incompetent. Using her to kill me was just using two loose ends to get rid of each other. Ugh, my power makes everything make so much sense _after_ it's useful."

"Yeah, it certainly swayed the lawsuit when that happened," I said. I tried to avoid thinking about actually _killing_ Sophia. As much as I had hated her, the memory of it still felt uncomfortably gruesome.

"But if he's now the Director of the PRT, why would he want the PRT's reputation ruined?" Colin thought aloud.

"To make himself look better," Dragon said. "If he can successfully foist all the failings on Piggot and yourself, remove both of you, then make himself look far better - nobody would question his decisions or authority. It's a common political tactic, especially right before elections."

Colin rubbed his hands through his hair. "I've played right into his hands. Am I really that predictable, Dragon? I've failed Shadow Stalker, I've failed Browbeat, I've failed the Protectorate. Perhaps… I was never meant to be a leader."

"Not everyone is, Colin. But that simply means you still need to find your specialty," Dragon said. "Know where you need to focus your energies. Maybe it's like what I was discussing with Panacea - perhaps you are better at wide-scale problems instead of narrow-scale, specific issues."

"But that's a pretty sweet halberd and power armour. Aren't there specific problems you still want to solve? Like, maybe, justice for Browbeat? You know the real criminal behind his death is walking free right now," Lisa goaded him.

Colin didn't answer her, but when he turned back to his workbench, he looked more determined than ever.

* * *

**Author's Note:**

I don't know how/when my spellchecker auto-changed Colin to Collin, but thanks to people who pointed it out. Had to edit my dictionary settings for some reason.


	40. Extension 3

Extension 3

If there was one thing that was certain, it was that we needed to take down Coil. Both Dragon and Colin were fully locked out of information from the PRT ENE branch, even though Dragon had existing contracts and work with other branches of the PRT. Lisa had insisted that although Director Calvert appeared to be cleaning up the city, he was still responsible for many mercenary-related killings that were happening.

That, at least, was something she could gather information on legally. Or semi-legally.

Meanwhile, we were also trying to track down Dinah Alcott. Colin, at least, still held some respect among his former teammates. He made some calls and met with his former team over a few days, trying to extract what information he could. Unfortunately, Coil had anticipated some of it, and classified a lot of the information and documents. It took some convincing to get any of them to spill the beans against orders – something Colin was terrible at, though he got help from both Dragon and Lisa.

Battery had been the one to bring Dinah in, and she was the one who had written up the most detailed report. Unfortunately, she wasn't involved in the case afterwards, and thus had no chance to check up on the girl. Unofficially, she knew the girl had been moved, but had no idea where. Oddly enough, when she had gone back to her own written report to try to recall specific details, she had found that her own report was inaccessible. Information redacted and classified, invoking WEDGDG protocols and child-protection laws.

Thankfully, Coil couldn't be too heavy-handed with hiding things – it would have raised too much suspicion why nobody was allowed to talk about rescuing a little girl. Moreover, given the time frame Battery was able to recall, there was only a slim period when the girl could have been moved.

Between Lisa and Dragon, even working with the limited data, they still managed to scrounge up enough information for several good guesses. They used everything from piecing together traffic camera, satellite imagery, and public PRT records, as well as what I could remember from watching the streets with my bots to get a rough picture.

"She definitely won't be in any hospital," Lisa said. "The more people in on a conspiracy, the more likely it'll fail. He can't buy out or threaten all the staff, and it's too likely that someone would recognize her and turn her in. She must be held at a private location."

"In that case, we'll have to keep a lookout and alert the appropriate people when the time comes," Dragon said. "Do you have any insights as to how her appearance may have changed?"

"It's unlikely she's been eating correctly," Lisa said. "But Coil is keeping her alive for a reason. So she may have been force fed, or given a nutrient-drip to keep her alive. Some bruising around her wrists for restraints and maybe some bruising on her arms from frequent drug injections, or Coil may have had professionally placed a port into her."

"Aside from that, we don't have much to go on. I'll be sifting through satellite imagery but it's unlikely she'll ever be let outdoors," Dragon said.

That wouldn't be a problem for me. I'd have to flood bots into every single home and building, to find her, though. And that was only if she was still somewhere in the region of Brockton bay or Concord. At the same time, I was expanding outwards from both cities, but I had no idea how far away the girl was. At least I knew exactly what to look for. Telltale signs that were rare on kids, even if I couldn't recognize her from an altered haircut and body shape.

"But Coil seems to be very good at covering his tracks. For now, we have to make preparations."

"By that I guess you mean Tinkering?" I asked.

Dragon nodded. "Colin, do you think your equipment is sufficient?" she asked.

Colin shook his head sadly. "Give me a few days, I'll be ready. I just need to add jump-jet systems to my suit and motorcycle."

"Eunoia... do you know if Abyssal...?" Dragon asked without trying to reveal too much.

"He can be ready time," I replied. I had to divide my efforts between expanding my searching in distance and in depth. I was prioritizing distance at the moment, because I suspected Coil had stashed Dinah further away from the city.

I was also getting less concerned about revealing my alter-ego, at least to my team. I was thinking of when I'd reveal it to the rest of New Wave.

* * *

My volunteer shifts at Concord hospital still boring, even though they were slowly allowing me and Panacea to perform more advanced treatments. Thus, I spent most of my days more focused on my bots, searching more deeply within Brockton Bay while expanding outwards through Concord. When I got back home, I wanted to tell Dragon and Lisa what I had found – which wasn't much.

"Hey, Lisa. You're actually studying or something?" I asked as I noticed she wasn't actually trying to dig up more intel on Coil. Then again, she had been stuck for a while until a few of Dragon's data requests went through. Slowed down by bureaucracy.

"Yep. Can't hurt to have some more skills," Lisa said. She sat at her computer with a textbook in her lap while she hacked away at the keyboard. I noticed she was using a personal laptop she had bought on her own, not a computer that Dragon lent her.

"What are you working on?" I asked.

"Oh, this and that," she answered. "I have some, uh, ideas to help out with Dragon. Make her data analysis more efficient, you know? The more data she can get, the better I can work with it."

I peered over her shoulder. "Programming? Tensor theory? Data sorting and learning algorithms? I never knew you were interested in this stuff."

"Oh, I just think it'll come in handy sooner or later," she said. "I can't rely on my power all the time, can I? Especially not with the stupid headaches."

"You know, your own research is pretty helpful, too," Lisa said. She clicked on a part of the screen to show what she had been reading. It was actually one of the scientific papers that I had worked on, with Dr. Kardon and Dr. Akagi being the primary authors.

"Oh. Huh. I… uh, I hadn't realized."

"Yeah. Shame your work with them has stalled for now. I think you were on a breakthrough in digitizing the brain. And not just the way Cranial does it."

"What? I am?" I gave Lisa a funny look. My research hadn't been going in that direction; all of it was still dedicated to more precise mapping of the organic brain and how parahuman abilities worked with or affected the brain. And replicating human brains, as far as Lisa was concerned. But that work was mimicking an organic-style brain, not a digital one.

"Your research and use of nanobots is at the forefront of neurological research," Dragon interjected. "With a more accurate map of the human brain, I could probably create a digital equiva… a… a..."

Dragon's avatar stuttered again.

Lisa looked at me and put a finger to her lips. What was going on here? Was this more than just internet connection problems? She started typing furiously on her laptop. When Dragon's avatar came back up, she slammed her laptop shut and went back to using the computer that Dragon had provided her.

"I'm sorry," Dragon said. "Where were we again? Oh, right. I have the data you wanted, Lisa. I've sorted the reports by time and location."

I just hoped Lisa knew what she was doing.

* * *

Since news of the Empire had been dying down, the team decided to head back to Brockton Bay for the weekend to do some patrols back in home territory. If things had settled down enough, without the threat of Empire retaliation or assassination, then the plan would be to move back home instead of continuing to rent the house in Concord.

Not that there hadn't been attempts. Just that none had been successful, since I shut them down before they even came close. Some hadn't heard the news that New Wave had moved. Some just wanted to destroy the homes as a symbolic act or cause financial damage to us. Some actually planned on driving all the way to Concord.

I stopped all of them with my bots, but without anyone able to report them to the police or act as reliable witnesses, I usually just made them suffer some "bad luck" to keep them down for a while. Their weapons would be destroyed, or their Molotov cocktails would spontaneously ignite in their own homes, or their cars would permanently break down. A little laser-guided karma to protect my team. Of course, I would keep my team protected on their first patrol back at Brockton Bay as well.

"Ames, Taylor, you guys okay hanging out with Dragon?" Vicky asked. "Mom still doesn't want you guys in the thick of the action."

"What action?" Amy complained. "There hasn't been anything happening in Brockton Bay lately. Have you seen the news? Or the forums? Everyone's praising the new PRT director for finally cleaning up the city."

She wasn't lying. Crime was definitely down, and even Abyssal had less to do these days. I was glad for that, because it left me with more bots to spy on the director and search for Dinah. On the other hand, it was a little annoying that people weren't acknowledging Abyssal's role in the cleanup. And not just cleanup in crime. I was rendering garbage down to create more bots, so the streets themselves were cleaner, too. People had been attributing that to the decrease in gang activity and Director Calvert.

"Yeah, I know, it'll probably boring as shit. But you know how Mom is about image and stuff. You okay on your own for a day?"

"I know how to microwave some pizza. I'll survive," Amy said, rolling her eyes.

"If we're really desperate I might be able to convince my dad to cook lasagna for us," I told her. I would actually be giving them backup, not that they really needed it.

As they all piled into the cars to head back to the Brockton Bay, I finally noticed Director Calvert do something slightly odd. Normally, he gave orders via text or email, often through a burner phone of some kind that he disposed of regularly. That was odd enough for a PRT director, but even if I fished the phones out of the garbage, there was no way of proving he had been the one to use them. I also couldn't read the text on his screens easily without making my bots' presence obvious, so it had been difficult to trace what exactly was said or who it was going to. Not that he even used real names anyway.

However, this time, he looked like he was panicking. He excused himself from an early meeting and went to his office. He sealed up the room and turned on some kind of anti-Master force field, similar to what he had in that one base where he had originally kept Dinah. The control of my bots dropped out for a minute, leaving me blind to what he was doing.

In other parts of the city, I noticed a few odd things that started to happen. A dark tinted car turned into the Pelhams' old neighbourhood and drove slowly along the street. Meanwhile, another car with tinted windows had pulled over along the side of the highway to Concord. A man climbed out and started hiking up a hill that overlooked the highway. Definitely an odd place to start a hike, so I kept bots on him just in case. He seemed to be collecting pebbles along the way.

The car near the Pelhams' acted first. My bots had invaded the inside of the car, looking for weapons or bombs, expecting more Empire goons as usual. Two of the people inside had handguns, which I silently rendered inoperable. I didn't find any explosives or arson equipment, so I figured they were planning on shooting up an empty home or maybe robbing the place. I kept watch on them the way I usually did for Empire vandals.

Instead of using their weapons, the window rolled down and a fireball shot out from the window. The heat even caused some of the paint on the side of the car to blacken even with the short exposure. The fireball smashed straight into the Pelhams' home and set the whole thing ablaze. I knew this fireball and this heat. It was the same cape that had destroyed my own home.

This time, she was inside a car instead of flying, so I had all my bots inside the car pierce her skin and enter her bloodstream. It was too late to stop the house from burning, but I could knock her unconscious now, and any time in the future if she came back. While the car sped away, it didn't get far. I managed to disable the engine and knock out the passengers, then knocked out the driver after the car had come to a stop.

At the same time, I was on high alert for guy who was hiking up the side of the highway. I had as many bots swarm over him as I could without him noticing, hoping I could find some evidence to use. I overheard instructions coming from his earpiece. There was no surprise when I heard a voice describe the colour and model of the Dallons and Pelhams' cars. He was looking down the highway with a pair of binoculars.

Even though I didn't find a weapon on him, it was easy to assume he was some kind of cape. I didn't let him have a chance to attack my teammates, I just knocked him out then and there. Maybe someone would find him before a bear did.

"Coil just sent the Travellers to destroy the Pelham home," I said to Lisa and Dragon. "And I think one of them was going to assassinate them on the highway. I stopped him, but the house is on fire."

"Firefighters and police are already on their way to the home," Dragon said. "If I had to guess, this was a pre-emptive attack to dissuade the team from moving back into Brockton Bay."

"Independent registrations are down in Brockton Bay," Lisa added. "Way down. My guess is when it's New Wave's time for renewal, it won't be approved. Or there will be a whole lot of hoops to jump through. He's trying to consolidate power. Either join the Protectorate, or join Coil. Both of which he controls. The ABB is all that's still standing up to him."

"That is something we will have to change," Dragon said.

"How did he even know, though?" I wondered aloud. "The decision to patrol Brockton Bay was just a spur-of-the-moment thing that was decided last night at dinner. I haven't found anyone spying on us."

"I do regular sweeps of the neighbourhood for espionage equipment as well," Dragon added. "It must be a parahuman power of some kind."

* * *

As Lisa and Dragon discussed the problem between them, I decided to try to investigate my own way.

First, the failure of both teams to report in allowed me to overhear some radio chatter. That let coordinate with other bots that were eavesdropping around the city, trying to match up exactly was speaking.

I managed to find one group that was also receiving the messages, hiding in a van, but they appeared to be a backup of some kind. Not the leader or coordinators. Meanwhile, Coil himself wasn't dealing with the issue himself; he was still stuck at the PRT office with plenty of staff and cameras around him. He wasn't even listening.

However, I did manage to overhear a short radio message. Someone said something about "checking on the asset." Vague, but suspicious enough for me to try to follow up on. I continued to search through massive numbers of cars while there was still some radio chatter going on. I managed to find the vehicle while they were still trying to organize backup for the arsonist team.

The car was already mildly suspicious because it was an SUV with three burly men and one smaller guy in it. Most cars on the roads only had one person. Wasteful, I know. Even groups tended to be couples or friends who were chatting, often playing music. These guys weren't talking. And they were armed. Their radio communications sealed the deal. I used more bots to swarm the car to track them.

They were heading out of the city in a direction that I hadn't been spreading as many bots. I had been mostly spreading my bots towards Boston and Concord, of course. Maine was just uneventful in general, so it had been very low priority for me. Now I rushed to send as many bots as I could in the direction the car was going, and just hoped their destination wasn't too far.

Thankfully I was also able to attach some additional, pre-made cloned brains to the vehicle, dropping them along the side of the road as they drove. I nearly ran out when the car pulled off the highway. They stopped at a small, rural home.

Given how stretched-out my range was, I didn't have enough bots in the area to do a thorough search. It would take hours before I could properly flood the place with bots. It was only the few bots I had attached to the car that could observe, so I focused on the conversation with the resident.

I wondered where Purity had disappeared to. Apparently she was living the quiet life now. "She's fine. You just saw her this morning," she was saying to the man.

"I insist," the man said firmly.

She let him in as he pushed past her. I was surprised a woman as powerful as Purity would allow herself to be talked down by a guy like him, but apparently he was calling the shots. Again, without enough bots, I couldn't really see what he was doing. But I had a few on his body, so I knew he had gone somewhere down in the basement. Whatever he found, he was satisfied with.

Down in the dark room, he typed out a text. Seconds later, Coil's burner phone buzzed that he had received the message. I still couldn't actually read the screen without bots noticeably swarming over his phone, but Coil seemed to be satisfied with a glance. A minute later, he typed a short reply. The man at Mrs. Anders' home checked it, then asked a question.

"What are the chances that this home will be attacked within the next twenty-four hours?"

"Twenty-two point five percent. It hurts... No more today… no more..." a young girl's voice answered. She didn't sound healthy.

He must have texted the answer to Coil. Again, I saw Coil type one more message, then dispose of the phone in the PRT's secure shredder.

Walking upstairs, the man spoke to Purity. "There is a good chance some enterprising hero is going to make a rescue attempt on her soon. See to it that they fail."

The three heavily-armed mercenaries stepped out of the vehicle, unloaded some additional equipment from the back, and walked inside of the home. The smaller man got into the car and left without them.

I was still slowly flooding more bots into the general area, but it would take a while before I had a complete overview of the home. For now, I focused my few bots on Purity herself and the girl downstairs. The mercenaries probably weren't much of a threat once I had enough bots.

"Theo - Thomas, take care of Alice and Diane. You'll have to stay in there for a day or two."

"Mom? What's going on?" the young boy asked, carrying the baby down to the dark basement.

"You know where the button is, right? If I tell you, get ready to hit it. Right now, just… stay in here. Let me know if you need anything. You can… you can play on your Nintendo all you like, watch TV."

Surprisingly, she actually brought the game console and some games into the basement for the kids, along with snacks and other things. She then closed a heavy, reinforced door, but didn't lock it. Not that it made imprisoning a child any better. Then again, she was also locking her own children in there, so she must have considered herself a protector, not a jailer. Hypocrisy and neo-nazis, name a better duo.

It took hours before I was able to have enough bots get a clear picture of the actual house. Surprisingly, it seemed to be pretty normal aside from the heavily armed mercenaries. A messy living room. A kitchen with some unwashed dishes. Toys scattered around. Textbook and notebooks open for elementary-school subjects. Diapers, baby bottles, and a crib. I knew the kids were all locked in the basement already.

That basement. Thick steel reinforced walls and doors. Electrified. One would think it was a saferoom, except for the handcuffs.

Dinah was basically chained to the back wall. There was a little bit of movement allowed along a steel rail, but only enough freedom to move from a toilet to the bed. She looked just as unhealthy as the time we had found her before, in Coil's base. Hopeless. Listless. A shock collar on her neck also stopped her from escaping even if she got out of her handcuffs, though her room looked much cleaner and comfortable than the one she had at Coil's base. Not that it was much better.

Upstairs, the mercenaries had set up positions around the inside of the house with booby-traps along the main entrances, and defensive barriers further back. The mercenaries didn't matter much to me. I could take them down easily with my bots. Purity, on the other hand, was an issue.

I knew she turned into a bright glowy thing. Was she still human underneath afterwards? Did she still have a circulatory system when she did that? I didn't want to set her off only to fail immediately. If she had to, she could probably pick up Dinah and fly out of my range if she had to. There were the other two kids, who seemed like they were her actual children. But I didn't want to stoop to the level of actually threatening innocent children. Or being accused of kidnapping. I would need backup.

* * *

"Hey everyone? I found Dinah. Purity has her," I told Lisa and Dragon. I gave them the address, which allowed the others to search up ownership and other legal things. A bit of digging allowed them to find some tenuous connections to Calvert – the home belonged to a rental company that. "She's pretty sick. I'm treating her as best I can without Purity noticing." I also created a model of the girl's face, so they could recognize her better.

"Why so much security? She's got to have a useful power," Lisa said.

"Oh, right. Coil's henchman asked the girl if the house was going to be attacked. She said there was a twenty-two point five percent chance of it happening today," I told them.

"Well that narrows down exactly why Coil wants to keep her under control. She's a precog."

"A powerful one, assuming those numbers are accurate. Then again, power-generated information often is inexplicably precise or has limited scope."

"Wait, did she know you were listening in? Now that you know her answer, wouldn't that change our decisions and alter the answer?" Lisa pointed out.

"Unless that answer has already taken it into account," Dragon pointed out.

"But, hypothetically, if it were a low number, like less than one percent, then I would have suggested we attack immediately, because Coil would have been thrown off-guard. But that's turning it into nearly a hundred percent chance. A power like that, if it's true precognition, would end up interfering with itself…" Lisa started rubbing her head again.

"Which is why it has ended up being a middling number in the twenties," Dragon said. "If you want a philosophical debate on free will, we can do it another time. At the moment, we have a rescue attempt to prepare."

"It depends on how much better prepared we can be than Coil. I've told you, that man has an unusual knack for making sure things go right. I say we hit them early before he can set anything up. He can make use of the extra time better than we can," Lisa insisted.

"I'll still need time to prep my bots. I was only just barely able to get enough bots into the area to observe. I won't have enough there to put up a good fight for maybe twelve hours at least." I also needed more brains there to cover a wider area; it wouldn't do for Purity to simply fly a hundred feet north and suddenly be out of my range again.

"Some backup would be helpful. I'm sure there may be several Protectorate members who would be willing to help, even against the Director's orders," Dragon said. "Colin may be able to convince them. His gear is nearly ready, and he should be putting the finishing touches on his new motorcycle," Dragon pointed out.

"Fine… alright. Let's try to get this ball rolling in less than a day," Lisa said. "Dragon, I'm going to need your coffee machine."

* * *

Colin's new motorcycle wasn't bigger than his old motorcycle in terms of length, but it was certainly bulkier and heavier. The same could be said of his armour. While it was still pretty sleek as far as most power armours went, it was heavier and thicker than his iconic Armsmaster suit. I didn't know if it was because of extra features he stuffed into it, or because he couldn't reproduce a suit that was as high-quality as his old one in such a short time. I didn't understand his tech well enough to judge, but I trusted that he would still be effective in combat.

"What's the situation?" Colin asked.

"We've managed to track down Dinah Alcott," Dragon told him. "We believe this is the incontrovertible evidence that can take down Calvert once and for all."

"How? The PRT already captured one person who admitted to be Coil. It'll be difficult with so much evidence already against him."

I should have known the guy we'd apprehended was a fake. But, even as a decoy, he was working for Coil and serve as additional evidence, if we could get him to confess properly. He was probably being paid or threatened to take the fall as Coil, so he would falsely confess to everything. We had to pin things directly on Director Calvert that couldn't be blamed on the decoy.

"We'll need Dinah Alcott in good health to identify Calvert as Coil. I'm sure she saw him at some point," Lisa said. "Then we'll have to seize their phones and computers. That's how Director Calvert has been operating as Coil. Between you and Dragon, I trust that you'll have the necessary skills to extract the evidence."

Colin gave her a questioning look. "How do you know that Dinah Alcott is still alive?"

It was my turn to address him. "Wait, how do you not know? Assault and Battery brought Dinah into the PRT when we raided his secret base."

"That was her? She was treated as a Jane Doe in our systems. Calvert moved her to another location outside of Brockton Bay before being seen by the PRT medics," Colin said.

"Yeah, she's living in a house being guarded by Purity," I said.

"You still haven't explained how you found out," he grumbled.

"I'll tell you later," I said. The info would have to come out eventually, so it was better my own team knew first.

"We need to know what we're up against," Dragon said. "Form a proper plan. Get as many trusted allies as possible."

"Then I'll ask if the rest of New Wave will help," I said. "And I can give you a layout of Purity's home. And keep watch for more mercenaries on the streets of Brockton Bay."

* * *

Thankfully, it didn't take much convincing. The team members who had personally seen Dinah Alcott the first time were horrified to learn that the girl hadn't been taken care of. Even worse was the idea that Coil they captured might have been a decoy.

The fact that Coil may have ruined their chances of returning to their home just made the decision easier. Even though it would cost far more than they could afford to move back to Brockton Bay, visiting for a weekend patrol, or a special raid, wasn't out of the question.

"You're saying that asshole was the one who burned down our house? Of course I want to get him," Laserdream said.

"I can't believe we missed it by less than an hour," Lady Photon said, shaking her head. "The only major crime during our trip to Brockton Bay, and it was targeting us. We could have stopped it."

"It wasn't a coincidence, I'm sure," Manpower said. "It was a message not to return to the Bay."

"I'm not even sure we can afford to now. Insurance won't cover everything," Lady Photon said with a sigh.

"Screw the house, we'll just keep living here!" Glory Girl said. "But that's not going to stop us from getting that fake director!"

"He's the real director, Vicky," Panacea reminded her. "We're not going to be assaulting a PRT director. We'll just be helping you guys find evidence against him. Right?"

"Right. There are quite a few things we can nail him with. First, Dinah Alcott. We know where she is, it's a matter of getting to her before Coil can take her away elsewhere. The second is the Travellers. They're his main parahuman asset right now. They're essentially mercenary villains, but I don't think they're hardened professionals. So we can expect to get some good evidence if we can interrogate them."

"What about his regular mercenaries? He has a lot of those, doesn't he?" Lady Photon asked. "I remember the base we raided had quite a few of them."

"They won't talk. Not that they'll know much anyway. Those ones are professionals, used to working in need-to-know situations," Lisa said. "He hired them from outfits like Briarlock and Etherguard, or personally-vetted recruits."

Brandish didn't seem to appreciate the fact that Lisa seemed to be leading the mission, but given Dragon and Colin's presence, she begrudgingly accepted the fact that this could be a legitimate accusation. "So how will the teams be divided? What exactly are we up against?"

"Abyssal will take care of most of the mercenaries. You'll only have to watch for stragglers. Dragon's team will mostly be focusing on securing Dinah Alcott, though we'd like Laserdream's help. Purity is working for Coil and guarding her," Dragon said.

"Can we trust Abyssal?" Brandish asked.

Oh boy.

"Yeah," I said. I could feel Amy and Vicky's eyes on me. "Because I am Abyssal."

There was a strained silence.

"What?"

"Excuse me?"

"Could you say that again?"

"I'm Abyssal. He's just a remote-controlled collection of bots. The same ones I use for medical procedures," I told them. "Oh, but I sanitize them first, of course."

"That's not the issue," Brandish said with a disapproving glare.

"This is… going to be a problem. It undermines our team's philosophy," Lady Photon added, frowning.

"He just happened to be a byproduct of some experimenting," I said. "And I needed a way to protect myself and dad. You guys can't watch over him all the time!"

"Look at your situation right now. She's right. I mean, you couldn't protect your own home, did you really expect her to fend for herself?" Lisa said.

"As if a former villain like you would understand the concept of having _principles_," Brandish said to Lisa. "What does our team even stand for if that were the case?"

"She does have a point," Manpower said. "We're in this situation because the whole 'single identity' thing has become a liability for us. And Eunoia was the first one to be targeted probably because she was the most vulnerable. Maybe now's a good time to re-evaluate the whole movement. Weren't we planning on that once we got established in Concord anyway?"

"And it's helpful," I added. "I can give all of you bulletproof armour!" I demonstrated on Lisa, forming a thick layer of bots over her.

"Well, I'm not saying no to free armour," Shielder said, looking impressed by the display.

"I don't really need it," Glory Girl said.

"Yes you do," Panacea said, poking her sister. "You're only invulnerable _most_ of the time."

"You don't seem so surprised by all this," Shielder said, looking over at Panacea and Lisa.

"It was my idea originally," Lisa said with a shrug.

"She told me a while ago," Panacea admitted.

"I figured it out on my own during the Behemoth battle," Dragon added helpfully.

"Hey, guys, why don't we argue about this later? At least now we know we have a strong cape at our side. If we really want to, we can figure out whether or not we want to let the rest of the world know about Abyssal. Cool?" Laserdream said. "Because I think an evil PRT director is the bigger problem."

Colin seemed to like that idea. He had no interest in internal politics. He stepped forward and pointed to the biggest screen in Dragon's workshop. "We'd like New Wave to handle the Travellers, should they arrive to back up Coil to aid his escape. I've compiled a list of their known skills and abilities. Sundancer and Ballistic will probably 'escape' from the PRT headquarters if they haven't already."

Dragon brought up the Traveller's profiles. "Their heavy hitter is Sundancer, who literally creates miniature suns. Very high temperature and radiation levels. She's the one who burned down two of your homes. Ballistic can imbue objects with kinetic energy, turning anything into a projectile. Including your own weapons and armor. Both of them have demonstrated restraint and have no direct kills, but are perfectly willing to cause massive property damage. Their support and leader is Trickster, who is capable of swapping objects and people within line-of-sight. Not Manton-limited, and known to be lethal. We also know of either a Master or Changer who can take on multiple monstrous forms, called Genesis. There may be others on the team."

"Coil has some sort of Thinker ability, either short-term precognition exceptional luck, or something like it. Dinah has generalized long-term precognition. As long as he has access to her, he's not going to make any wrong choices," Lisa added.

"Hey, we almost got him once. We can do it again," Glory Girl said firmly.

"One more thing, though. We can expect to be labeled as villains once we do this. Coil, as Director Calvert, will be able to do that in order to request backup from other heroes, and run a smear campaign against all of us," Lisa said.

"I've been contacting my former team, but there's no guarantee that all of them will be on our side over the Director's," Colin added. "It could be worse if he calls for backup from Boston or New York."

"Are we sure that's going to be enough to charge Director Calvert with being a villain? It still doesn't seem like enough. We stand to lose a whole lot more," Manpower asked.

"There's also the electronic evidence," Lisa said. "I've been working on that. I've given Dragon data on all the bank accounts and shell companies that I know of. If we can just get enough for a warrant to investigate him, I know exactly where to point the real authorities to really nail him."

"Well, we'll have to take time to gather evidence before we can present a case," Brandish said.

"No. In fact, the longer we wait, the less evidence we'll have. Coil's destroying, sealing, or redacting all the evidence he has control over via the PRT. The longer we wait, the less we'll have to work with," Lisa pointed out. "We need to do this soon. Like, tomorrow at the latest."

* * *

There was a bit more discussion but in the end, there wasn't much left to prepare for. Our original plan still worked with only minor tweaks.

"This had better not be some kind of trick," Brandish said to Lisa. "And taking down another villain doesn't make you a hero. You still need to make up for the crimes you've done. Do the time you owe society."

"And she will, if she's given the chance," Dragon said. "I intend to formally submit my recommendation that Lisa be invited to the Guild," Dragon told us. "The Guild does allow reformed villains to work under probation, with supervision, with the work counting towards community service hours. I believe Lisa can redeem herself as a hero."

"Come on, mom, she's really not that bad," Glory Girl said.

"I think I could live with that. How long do you expect this 'community service' to last?" Lisa asked.

"Given your known crimes, with an argument for working under duress, we could have it reduced to one to two years under house arrest, working for the Guild," Dragon said. "I'd put in a request that you work directly under me and my supervision. I think our talents synergize quite well."

"Well, at least you'd be better employers than Coil," she answered. "I'm starting to get used to this place anyway."

"Naturally, I'm joining the Guild as well. I already had a name in mind," Colin said. "I will be Errant. Being newly-independent, I'm no longer limited by the regulations that had held me back before. I'll be able to stand up to villainy and be a hero on my own terms."

"Like a knight-errant? I guess that fits pretty well." Laserdream asked.

Colin – or Errant, now – nodded.

Dragon smiled. "I'm sure the Guild will be perfect for you. We do have a few obligations, but you'll have quite a bit more freedom so long as what you're doing is for the greater good."

"Lisa, you should pick a name, too."

"I guess I could use a new name. Insight is taken already," Lisa said. "You have any suggestions? My power's no good for creativity, it only tells me factual answers."

"Deduction?" I suggested.

"That makes it sound like I have the power of tax returns," Lisa said.

"How about a detective theme? Sherlock Holmes... Shirley Holmes?"

"Surely you're not going to call me Shirley," Lisa responded with a completely flat tone.

"Why not Princess?" Glory Girl suggested.

"Why the hell would I go by Princess?" Lisa answered, completely flabbergasted.

"Well, we already have a knight," she said, pointing to Errant. "And Dragon." Her finger moved to the screen. "And since you've basically been living in Dragon's lair for the past month…"

"Oh, you are not doing that –"

"Princess is a good name," Shielder said.

"I agree," Laserdream added. "Nice one, GG."

"I have to admit I've been lacking a certain something with my theme," Dragon said in an amused tone.

"Oh, not you too!" Lisa complained.

"Stop whining, Princess. We don't have time to waste trying out new nicknames. Coil's targeting my family and I want him taken down," Brandish said. I thought saw a hint of a smirk on her face as she said that. Maybe she wanted that just because she didn't like Lisa.

"Fine, whatever. Princess it is," Lisa said. "We can go over the detailed battle plan, and if you're not too tired, we can start at dawn tomorrow."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

\- not dead, just busy. Though in these times, I'd rather have too much work than not enough.

\- Also ended up re-writing or deleting a lot, because I felt like I was just re-hashing things too much.


	41. Extension 4

Extension 4

On the day of the mission, I was at Concord Hospital along with Panacea. The team agreed to send both of us there for our own protection. Primarily it was so I had something to do. Not that work at the hospital was especially difficult, even with the more advanced cases they were letting me do. It also provided some more obfuscation of my alternate identity, since we hadn't finished debating whether or we should go public about Abyssal. For now, I would be maintaining the secret. I'd still be contributing in a multitude of ways.

Princess, not being officially part of the team and barely tolerated by Brandish, had to fend for herself. Though, being inside Dragon's armoured lair was reasonably safe, but I added some additional protection and watchful eyes in the area.

Further away, before the rest of the team even left Concord, I was scouting out. I made sure Coil hadn't set up any traps along the way like he tried with Ballistic. Director Calvert had stayed the night at the PRT building, saying he had "too much work" to do. In reality, I knew he was doing it for the additional protection – he was afraid of being out on the streets. He had alerted the Protectorate and PRT about a potential imminent attack by a villain group, from an "anonymous" tip. Because the ABB was the only real gang left in Brockton Bay, they had geared themselves up to be ready for anything up to and including Lung. He was ready to deploy PRT strike teams at a moment's notice, but right now, they were all just waiting.

I was certain at this point that he had one more base shielded from my power, because I still couldn't find the Travellers or more mercenaries on the streets – aside from Sundancer, who was in a PRT cell, and Ballistic, who I allowed to wake up and slowly try to hike back into the city on foot, in the middle of the night. He was tired and currently resting on the side of the road. In the years since the Slaughterhouse Nine, nobody picked up hitchhikers any more, so he had to get back on his own.

My bots were ready to knock out Calvert and Sundancer at any time, though if I did it now, it would instantly put everyone on edge and convince the entire PRT that it was a true villain attack. It was something I'd have to save for more opportune time.

However, my main priority was Dinah. While everyone in Purity's home was sleeping (other than the mercenaries, who were sleeping in shifts), I had my bots perform as much medical intervention as I knew. I couldn't feed her, or force her to eat, but I could clean her up. I was starting to understand drug addiction more, and I could recognize the alterations to her brain that the drug had caused. Now, I wasn't completely experienced in the actual treatment, but I knew enough of the basics to at least lessen the withdrawal symptoms. I sent bots to her damaged synapses to help them function properly, as well as block the effect of any more of the drug.

On top of that, I had bots surround the injection port. Any more drugs they put in her body would immediately be captured and contained by my bots so it wouldn't affect her. There was probably some bad withdrawal symptoms, but I would use my bots as best I could to mitigate those as well.

I also didn't quite know how her power worked, but I was guessing she was compelled to answer. I hoped Coil hadn't simply tortured her until she was trained not to resist. At the very least, I could just plug up her ears so she couldn't hear any questions. No questions meant no answers. And maybe keeping her asleep would help too.

* * *

The team left just before the morning rush hour. Through bots inside Dragon's workshop, I kept them updated on what I saw, but it wasn't much. The first action I noticed on Coil's part was to send more men to Purity's home.

The creepy, shorter man returned to Purity's home, along with more mercenaries and heavier weaponry. Six more men and some very dangerous-looking weapons, including machine guns and sniper rifles, were brought into the house. Nine in total now, but again, they weren't parahumans as far as I could tell. I could take them down quickly when I had to.

While the mercenaries got more things set up, the man went down into the basement, where the kids were all still sleeping. Purity watched him go, wary of the briefcase he was carrying.

He nudged Dinah. "Wake up, little one," he said. "Your master has questions for you."

I blocked a few nerve signals so that she stayed asleep, completely unaware of the man.

He crouched down and tried shaking her. I made sure there was no response. I started moving more bots to help armour Dinah in case the man got violent.

Thankfully, he didn't. He turned to Purity, who was watching from the doorway. "Did you give her anything? Painkillers? Sleeping pills?"

"Of course not," Purity said with a tone of annoyance. "I've been following your orders. I've fed and bathed her. Are you sure _you_ haven't killed her with all those drugs you keep giving her?"

The man didn't answer her and instead opened his briefcase. He took out several instruments, including a syringe. He drew up a drug that I didn't recognize. When he tried to inject it, I had my bots block off the injection and damage the syringe. Nothing got through to her, and the instrument broke in his hands.

"What the –" Modern syringes almost never broke these days, so I could understand his surprise. It also put him on alert that something strange was going on. He quickly grabbed a radio and shouted. "Possible cape attack und…" I knocked him out with my bots, but the alert had gone out.

I had hoped we would have more time. The rest of the team was still ten minutes from the city; Errant was five minutes away from Purity's home. I tried to use my bots to knock out Purity as well, but as soon as she changed forms, all my bots in her body sizzled into nothing. As I figured, she wasn't even physically human when she transformed, so I couldn't stop her. I did stop the mercenaries though; all nine of them were quickly rendered unconscious too.

**"Sorry. Attack at Purity started. Mercs down. Purity is alert."**

I sent the message to Dragon and Princess, who in turn relayed it to the rest of the team. I made sure my bots covered the rest of the team in an extra layer of armour in case of an ambush I didn't see.

* * *

Over at the hospital, I let Panacea know as well. The early morning shift didn't have that much for us to do, especially with how the hospital was limiting us right now. We were both sitting in a mostly-empty Emergency Room.

"The operation's started," I said quietly to her.

"Is everyone doing okay?" she asked.

"They haven't arrived yet. I had to start early to protect Dinah," I said. "Don't worry. I'll keep them safe."

Panacea sighed. "I still can't believe you've been doing so much without even telling anyone. You could be on par with Dragon someday. While I'm stuck in this stupid hospital with its stupid policies."

"Maybe… are you thinking about it, too? I, uh, saw you experimenting with some plants a few days ago," I admitted. I didn't mention the plants she had on her body under her clothing. That would be too embarrassing. Heck, could they even be considered plants at this point?

Amy looked shocked, and a little scared. "You knew?"

"Um. Sorry. I'll keep it a secret if you want," I told her. "But yeah, I see almost everything outdoors between here and Brockton Bay. And I keep an especially close watch on our neighbourhoods. Did you know there were actually twenty attempts at vandalizing your homes since we left Brockton Bay? The last one was the only one I couldn't stop," I told her.

Panacea's head dropped to her hands. "Ugh. Of course you did. I've been playing around with some ideas. Like a nutritious plant that can grow in seawater. Improved gut bacteria. Things that Dragon was talking about, you know? Why be stuck here when I could be saving millions of lives around the world with an invention?" she waved her arm at the nearly-empty emergency room.

I nodded. "That's a good idea. I could help you with distribution, if you want. My bots could carry seeds and stuff…"

"Thanks. Let's just keep it between us for now," Panacea said. "I don't think Carol would approve. People don't like Bio-tinkers even if it's something to help the public."

"It's the same thing they say about nanobot tinkers," I said. "Nobody ever believes we can actually do good with our powers, so I just pretend I can only do a tiny fraction of what I do."

Panacea nodded in understanding. I held up a finger to stop her from continuing, because I noticed a nurse around the corner coming towards us. "Panacea and Eunoia, you're up! We've got a head-on collision incoming, three victims."

"Yippee, something to do," Panacea said blandly.

I let take first dibs. I already had something to do.

* * *

Errant sent us a discreet message once he was nearing Purity's home. Glory Girl and Laserdream flew above, being the two fastest capes and the only ones who had any chance at all of standing up against Purity. I started moving mass amounts of nanobots in the area into the building.

Since I was still at work with patients, I couldn't talk to them, but I was keeping watch on everything. Body-cameras linked to Dragon's computers, along with Princess-led analysis allowed them to coordinate the team. They couldn't see what I saw, but I could give them hints. The recordings were vital to making sure everything was by the book and could be used as evidence. Unfortunately that also meant Glory Girl had to be on her best behaviour.

Before inevitable clash occurred, I was using my nanobots to quietly grind through the walls of the reinforced basement. The panic button had sealed the place shut, and while the room wasn't as secure as, say, a military bunker, it was reinforced with hardened steel. The innovations I had worked out with Dragon on the Nanothorn project were helping; I could grind through this stuff a lot faster than I used to.

I also let Dinah wake up. I didn't know how cooperative she would be, but I was hoping she wasn't completely drained of willpower. My bots that were already inside the room started slicing away at the handcuffs that kept her there. It would help if she tried to escape on her own, so we didn't have to search the house. The quicker we got her out, the less time the team would have to be flying around fighting a Blaster 8.

The young girl woke up, and she immediately realized things weren't normal. For one, the two other kids were in the room with her. Theo, or Thomas, or whatever his name was, held the baby and was trying to calm her down. I'm sure she noticed the lack of withdrawal pains, too. Then there was the man at the foot of her bed, unconscious. She recognized him. A rush of adrenaline helped bring her to alertness, and she also noticed the handcuffs had been sliced open.

"Eighty-two percent chance I escape today," she whispered to herself. Her heart rate increased.

Outside the house, Purity wasn't hesitating one bit. She was flying high above the home, and when she saw Glory Girl and Laserdream flying in, she immediately took a shot at them. A stream of light pierced through the morning sky, which was easily dodged by the two capes. Purity knew full well she was under attack, she knew she was outnumbered, and she wanted to make the first strike.

"I was wondering where she ran off to," Laserdream said. She started to charge up her own lasers at her fingertips before sending a barrage of light at Purity, which streaked in wide arcs in every direction. Before she could make contact, though, Purity sent another blast directly her way, which forced her to abort the attack.

Glory Girl flew straight in, narrowly dodging Purity's attack on her cousin. Between dodging Laserdream's attack and avoiding Glory Girl, Purity wasn't able to charge up a particularly powerful blast or aim well. As the three fought in the air, the distraction was great enough that the ground wasn't covered. I suppose the mercenaries were supposed to have had that job, but they were all unconscious. That meant Errant was able to get close to the home before she noticed.

However, Purity was keeping an eye on the home. All of the fighting so far, she had been trying to keep Laserdream and Glory Girl away from the home, and put herself in between them and the house. That was probably why she was so distracted. When Errant got close enough, she finally noticed. She ignored the two other fliers and started bombarding the road. Thankfully, Errant's new motorcycle was more than capable off-road, and could even handle smashing a few fences.

Back indoors, I had managed to slice through the side of the wall. Dinah responded immediately, and began to crawl out of the hole that was just big enough for her to squeeze through. It simply led to the laundry room, where she easily found the path upstairs.

Just for additional safety, I coated her body in nanobot armour as well. She was surprised, but didn't resist after whispering another question to herself. I formed Abyssal upstairs to help defend her, not that the unconscious mercenaries could do anything. She paused when she saw him, but allowed herself to be carried by him.

**"I have Dinah. Tell Errant, front door,"** I relayed the message through Dragon.

Up in the air, the battle was still ongoing.

Errant's bike was too nimble to be hit at long range, so Purity was trying to close in on him. Glory Girl chased after her, managing to snag her ankle for a second, although she was forced to let go to dodge a point-blank shot in the face.

When Errant skidded to a halt in front of the door, she ran towards him before he had fully stopped. She immediately climbed on to the bike without prompting.

"You're a very trusting girl," Errant said.

"Ninety one point two percent chance I see my family again if I go with you," she simply said.

Errant grunted as he spun the bike around. "Here's to making sure it's a hundred."

"No!" Purity yelled. She had somehow gotten away from Glory Girl and Laserdream for a second. She sent the beam of light straight at Errant's motorcycle, aiming for the front wheel instead of the back where Dinah was sitting.

I sent Abyssal directly in its path, taking the brunt of the force. She didn't have enough time to charge up her shot, so Abyssal didn't disintegrate instantly. But he wasn't going to be able to withstand the blast forever.

Glory Girl managed to get in the way and tackle her, disrupting the beam.

Errant gave a small nod at the pile of bots, then revved up his motorcycle. He accelerated away, popping a small wheelie from the sheer power. "Dragon, has the mayor arrived at City Hall?"

"I confirmed him entering the building," she said. "He's likely in his office. Most other workers are also arriving now."

"Good," he said. "More witnesses are beneficial. Let's go ahead with the public revelation plan."

"You're not getting away with her!" Purity shouted from above. She was about to chase him, but I re-made Abyssal and slammed his sword into the door. I deliberately waited until she responded to the noise before making him walk inside.

Purity looked torn, but made her choice. She flew down, into the house, and didn't hesitate to blast Abyssal apart.

I didn't bother resisting the blast. He was blown to pieces easily, along with the wall behind him.

"Theo! Theo, are you alright?" Purity yelled.

**"He is not."** I echoed the threat throughout the home, giving her no clear target.

I then created a full version of Abyssal inside the prison room. The boy quickly tried to escape through the same hole that I had created for Dinah, but carrying the baby slowed him too much. Abyssal easily grabbed on to both the boy and the baby with one arm, and neither could put up any meaningful resistance. I didn't want to resort to threatening kids, but if it could stop Purity in her tracks, so be it. I began sealing up the hole as well, welding the metal wall shut.

Both of them were making plenty of noise, crying and screaming as they were taken. Noise that could easily be heard outside the room. Purity rushed to the basement and started unlocking the vault-like door.

By then, Laserdream and Glory Girl were circling the house, unsure if they should enter. Close-quarters fighting was always risky, especially in unfamiliar territory.

"Should we go in? What's Purity doing?" Glory Girl asked.

**"Purity inside. Distracted,"** I told them through the bots on the front lawn.

"Oh, hey there, Eunoia. You know that still sounds freaky as hell, right?" Glory Girl said. "I'm going in."

"I'll be behind you," Laserdream said.

By the time Purity unlocked the door and swung it open, Glory Girl had found her. The bright light was hard to miss.

"Give it up, Purity!" she shouted.

"If you think I'm going to let you hurt my kids…" she growled.

"Says the kidnapper!" Glory Girl interrupted with a laugh. "Good one!" She put up her fists and got ready for round two.

"_Glory Girl, wait. She cares about those kids. Lock her inside that vault with them," _Princess said over the radio. _"It'll leave us with more evidence to collect."_

She was right. We needed Coil's men apprehended and the weapons documented as evidence. A violent fight could have ended with Purity vaporizing everything, and we would be left with nothing to pin on Coil. I had to remind myself that today, we were after evidence, not just beating up villains.

"What? She can blast through that door in two seconds," Glory Girl replied over the radio.

"_Not without killing her own kids in the backlash. She won't do it," _Princess pointed out.

She was right again. It was a pretty tight space inside there. Maybe the boy could survive, but the baby? Probably not.

**"Stand down. Lock yourself in,"** I told Purity. Short of actually knocking her out or killing her, Dinah's former prison was the ideal place to stop her, and only if she was in there with her kids. Thankfully, she looked desperate to reunite with them and check on their safety. I could use that. I made a show of dissolving Abyssal to free the kids, then had him reappear behind her. There was a clear and open path to her children.

Purity weighed her options, and then floated into the room and hugged her children. Abyssal dragged Coil's man out before closing the door on Purity, then locked it. I jammed up the mechanism a bit so that she wouldn't be able to simply let herself out, and finished welding the hole.

"Now what?" Glory Girl asked.

"Now we collect evidence," Laserdream said. "I mean, I've already spotted illegal fully-automatic weapons and explosives upstairs. Touch as little as possible and record everything. I'm sure we'll find other stuff. This is just going to be tricky because we can't call the PRT for this, not until Calvert's locked away."

* * *

"_Errant has the package and is en route. Has team B and C contacted the VIPs?"_ Princess asked them through the radio.

"_ETA five minutes,_" came the response.

The Brockton Bay team had only just parked their car. They split up, looking to make contact with two people in particular – the Alcotts, and the Mayor. It was probably a lucky coincidence that Dinah was related to someone politically important at all, but we would have to make use of it as best we could in order to counter Coil's deep clout across the city.

Thus, the adults of New Wave were sent to contact them before Calvert could realize. Lady Photon and Manpower were still recognizable heroes and often dealt with business or political meetings, and they knew the mayor personally. Brandish and Flashbang would be looking for the Alcotts, as she understood the legalities and could explain the situation to them better.

With the other bots, I kept surveillance of City Hall, where everyone would be meeting up. I surveyed as much of the area in deep detail that I could, and didn't see any of Coil's mercenaries and snipers. Good. The Pelhams were already in, and were trying to talk their way into meeting the mayor on short notice without an appointment. It was a fine line Lady Photon had to tread between being incredibly insistent without getting security called on them.

The Dallons were having better luck. The Alcotts were eager to hear any good news about their daughter. They had been losing hope with no news or sightings for a few months. And as relatively well-known heroes, they were more willing to believe Brandish and Flashbang. They agreed to meeting at City Hall as well.

* * *

Coil had certainly noticed what was going on by now, and he was panicking. Sure, he held himself quite calmly, but I had bots on and inside his body. Heart rate and perspiration weren't visible to the people around him, but to me it was clear as day. The man had a lot of practice working under pressure and hiding his emotions.

In a calm voice, he gave orders to someone to deliver a message to the holding cells. The only notable cape in there right now was Sundancer; the others were a no-name fresh trigger and one of the ABB's new hires, Boombuster. I couldn't even tell if the agent was a mole or a stooge. That was the issue with trying to root them out; people rarely questioned orders from above even if they seemed strange.

Either way, a simple coded message was delivered to the cape. She seemed to understand it just fine. Within minutes, the lights flickered and the power went out in the building. Sundancer used the opportunity to sear a hole through the side of the building. With the power down, none of the force-fields, foam dispensers, or other security measures came online – apparently even the backup power hadn't kicked in.

Director Calvert was the only one who could authorize those controls, and he was also the only one capable of erasing the records afterwards. Which was exactly what he was busy doing right now. I decided to give him an additional "glitch" and turn cut power to his office computer. Hopefully Dragon or other cybercrime experts could dig up the records later.

As for Sundancer, she was not something I wanted my team to have to deal with. Neither their shielding powers nor my bots could withstand the plasma that she created. Thankfully, I still had bots inside of her. As she took off, I cut off her blood flow to her head. Within seconds, she passed out, and fell three stories from the sky and crashed onto the hood of a car. Whoopsies.

The mercenaries at Purity's home, and the man there, had radios that were coming to life with chatter. Calvert had managed to get out a few orders as Coil, and he was starting to deploy some of his own mercenary forces. Thanks to the spare radios, I was able to more easily figure out where they were coming from.

Which made it easier for me to promptly shut down as well. Flat tires, tinkertech fizzling, and sudden fainting overcame several mercenary forces I found around town. The more resistance they encountered, the more they ended up talking, and the more of their communications I could eavesdrop and track.

In the confusion within the PRT building, Calvert actually acted like a PRT director. He blamed the power failure on an unknown villain and a direct attack on the PRT, and then used it to elevate his legally acceptable use of force. With his own computer broken, he was now wasting time trying to log into his secretary's computer, while splitting his time between actually managing the PRT forces and trying to erase his own footsteps. The orders he secretly sent out as Coil came few and far between, because he no longer had a chance to hide it.

Then his secretary's computer also suffered a mysterious short-circuit and his phone's antenna malfunctioned. I wondered how much more it would take to make him really slip up, because he was still really good at hiding his aggravation.

PRT employees of all stations were bombarding him with reports and phone calls about what was happening in the city and in the building. People were reporting the heavily-armed men who had suddenly fallen asleep at the wheel and crashed into telephone poles. People were reporting sightings of New Wave in the city. People definitely noticed the power outages and the escaped prisoners. He didn't have enough privacy to act as Coil right now. Not well, at least.

He started to use his last resource he had that didn't arouse suspicion: the PRT itself. To their credit, PRT officers immediately began rushing to get geared up. They were well-trained and didn't need detailed orders to know what to do in an emergency.

He contacted the police, who were already dealing with the mercenaries. The police force was advised to deploy anti-riot countermeasures, prepare for something bigger, concentrate less on arresting the unconscious men.

And then came the kicker. "Inform the public that the cape team formerly known as 'New Wave' has turned villain and have kidnapped a child, and have taken the mayor hostage. They may have partnered with Dragon to disrupt the PRT response," he announced in an emergency press release.

Brandish was going to have a field day with that one.

* * *

On the other hand, the inside of City Hall was actually much calmer. The mayor certainly didn't act like he had been taken hostage. He was having a chat on the phone with his sister and brother-in-law, and they were all coordinating an emergency meeting.

Errant parked his bike on the front steps of City Hall and ran into the building carrying Dinah. Right behind him, I formed Abyssal at the door. I didn't attack anyone, I just had him stand there, still as a statue, swords crossed in front of him. It drew attention, though technically he wasn't doing anything illegal, which would give the heroes fewer distractions and more time to speak to the Mayor. On the other hand, we _wanted_ more attention. Especially media attention.

Apparently the news networks had been alerted – capes were common in the Bay, but capes rushing towards City Hall was actually newsworthy. From Abyssal, I watched as news vans screeched to a halt behind the police line. Velocity was the first Protectorate member on-scene. He was already trying to get inside from the other entrances, but I had the other nanobots close and lock the doors.

When Errant managed to meet up with the Pelhams, Dinah spoke out loud. "95% chance I can live with my family if they are all here," she said.

That caused Errant to pause for a second. "I need to make a phone call to Triumph," he said. "Excuse me. I'll leave her in your hands."

"They're on their way. We'll make sure they get here safely." Lady Photon assured the girl, guiding her to the mayor.

I was doing my part to make sure of that as well. While Shielder and Brandish flew outside the vehicle that Flashbang was driving with the Alcotts, I was worried they wouldn't be able to take on all possible attackers. Including the Travellers and mercenaries.

I kept a close eye on them. Around the city, I was noticing armed men being deployed in heavy, armed vehicles, more mercenaries that I had missed. I was certain now that their bases had some kind of anti-Master, or Stranger-like shielding around them that stopped me from seeing inside, but once they were on the streets they were easy targets. It took only a quick check to see that they weren't some kind of undercover police or PRT, then sliced and diced the engines and weapons to dust.

**"Coil knows. Mercenaries deployed. I've taken care of them. He's declaring us villains."** I updated Dragon and Princess before the news became public.

"I am aware," Dragon said. "Legally there is nothing we can do for the moment, it's something we can fight in a public hearing. Unfortunately I will have to cut my support short. From this point forward, because I am not a US citizen, the legal consequences would be more dire for aiding a villain until you have the designation overturned."

"Right. Just keep doing what we're doing, it doesn't change our plans," Princess added. "Keep the cargo safe!"

She didn't have to tell me twice. Nobody even got close to any of the Alcotts. I was especially wary of red lights, which would have been ideal times for them to be ambushed, but no ambush came. The Travellers still hadn't been deployed, aside from Sundancer's failed escape. I suppose Coil was too busy as Calvert at the moment to actually issue orders to his criminal organization.

The Alcotts arrived at City Hall completely unharmed and none the wiser. They paused in fear at the sight of Abyssal, but the Dallons assured them of their safety. Abyssal let them pass, but nobody else. That definitely caught peoples' attention. The PRT vans and SWAT teams were both being deployed – all the big guns were arriving, and it looked like Calvert only had time to use the legal channels against us for now.

At least they tended to be more cautious and had regulations limiting them. Abyssal could take them on. I made sure to keep him looming over the forces below, ensuring that they knew any attempt to force their way in would be a real challenge. And, of course, I quietly sent my bots into their weapons to make sure they would malfunction.

I kept Abyssal there until I saw more of the Protectorate members arrive in PRT vans, including Triumph and Miss Militia. Her power started forming into various weapons. It looked like she was going through what data the PRT had against Abyssal to try to figure out the best thing to counter his abilities. She seemed to settle on a grenade launcher - presumably loaded with gas grenades or something less destructive.

"_Let Triumph enter. He has a personal connection that can aid the case," _Errant said over the radio. Well, he did know his former team best.

Abyssal pointed at Triumph, then pointed back towards the building behind him. They seemed surprised at his gesture. The regular police held back while the PRT and Protectorate members approached; it seemed that Abyssal had warranted a high enough rating to be considered a danger to them.

"What are your demands?" Miss Militia asked, stepping in front of Triumph.

**"TRIUMPH. ENTER."** I wondered if this was the first time his voice was recorded on live TV. It probably was. I made his voice extra-deep and bassy, just to be sure. Had to make a good impression, after all.

"You _want_ him to go in there?" she asked.

Abyssal nodded.

Triumph nodded. "Have to check on the mayor."

"No. Reports are a hostage situation. You're not going in there alone," Miss Militia told him.

"New Wave capes were seen entering earlier, and no reports of violence," Triumph said to her. "I'm going in. I need to find out what the hell's going on. Everything about this feels fishy."

"Not without backup. They could have been Mastered," Miss Militia told him. "New Wave's independent license hasn't been renewed, and the Director is actually considering them potential villains. He might have intel that was handed to him from above."

One of them could be Coil's mole and ruin everything. I knew Miss Militia was unlikely to be Coil's mole, but she was annoyingly supportive of Calvert. I did trust Errant's judgment. If he wanted Triumph there, so be it. It didn't mean a free pass for the other Protectorate members, but having Triumph inside was probably more important than keeping Miss Militia outside.

**"AGREED."**

"Thank you," Triumph said as he ran past. Miss Militia kept an eye on Abyssal as she walked by, stepping backwards into the building with her grenade launcher still trained on him. I made sure he didn't make any sudden moves. Once inside, they went straight for the Mayor's office.

Velocity arrived seconds later, running around the building, trying to open the doors again. I made sure they stayed locked for now; nanobots jammed in the keyholes prevented them from being unlocked easily.

* * *

Inside, the moment of truth had come.

We revealed Dinah Alcott to her family, with the mayor present. The parents recognized their child. Even Triumph seemed to know her personally.

"Dinah? It's really you?" Her parents rushed down to give her a hug, sobbing in relief.

"It really is, isn't it?" Mayor Christener said. "I had given up hope. The chief of police told me there were no leads and no suspects. I swear I had them put their top detectives and forensics teams to the case."

I was surprised when Triumph took off his mask. "Hey, Dinah. It's me, Rory. I swear, I won't let anything happen to you again." He stood up and faced Errant. "Armsmaster… I had a feeling you were being set up. I'll petition to have you brought back. It won't be hard to convince the entire team…"

Errant held up his hand. "It's Errant now. And I prefer the way things are now. I'm joining the Guild."

Triumph sighed. "I see. Got your sights set on bigger problems, then? Glad you still found the time to help clean up the Bay. I can't thank you enough for rescuing Dinah."

Errant just nodded. He captured the whole thing on his camera, as did Dragon with her own surveillance equipment, and the rest of the team with their body cameras. There was a lot of confusion, hugging, tears, but eventually the story was clarified. The rest of the team was explaining the details about where we had found her, her condition, and who was responsible. I figured that, for the most part, everything was going swimmingly.

I kept watch on the inside of the building and surroundings. The most important thing right now was that the right people were hearing the whole story uninterrupted, even if it meant causing a bit of a scene outside. I was certain that Errant, Triumph, and maybe Miss Militia would do the right thing and be on our side. Coil couldn't possibly try to anything against them at this point, not without destroying any possible chance of his own defense.

The police were standing back, the Triumph was contacting the heroes, the mercenaries were all lying unconscious in their broken-down vehicles, and the villains were nowhere to be seen.

And over in southern Maine, while Glory Girl and Laserdream were still waiting for the local police to arrive to arrest the mercenaries, Purity was being quiet. She was holding her children, locked inside the safe room. Agitated, but not violent.

Even in Concord, there was nothing that was threatening our home, Lisa, or Dragon. Lisa was merely making recordings and backups of videos for evidence to use against Coil.

Honestly, all I had to do now was just make sure nobody interfered, and let things play out. Wait, why was Lisa panicking?

* * *

Errant noticed something was wrong as fast as I did. He attempted to message Dragon, but she didn't answer, which had me worried. I focused on the nanobots I had around my house, fearing some kind of retaliatory attack on my home. I didn't see any signs of a struggle or even any mercenaries or capes at all. Lisa was there, though, and she was running around inside Dragon's workshop like crazy. It almost looked like she was tearing the place apart.

**"Dragon?"** I tried to ask her what was going on, but the screens were frozen and only static was coming out of the speakers. Dragon wasn't responding.

"Errant! Dragon's under attack! The source is in Toronto! How fast is your bike?" Lisa shouted.

"At top speed, I can be there in an hour."

"I'll tell Narwhal! It's the Dragonslayers!"

**"Princess. What's happening?"** My bots boomed through the workshop.

"No time! Emergency!" She was ignoring it in favour of messing around with the computers desperately. "Destroy the antenna on top of the workshop!"

"You sure? What's happening?"

**"YES! DO IT NOW!"** she practically screamed at me.

I used my bots outside to quickly slice through the connections on the mini-satellite dish-antenna Dragon had. Lisa looked completely frazzled but the number of alarms and error messages popping up on the screens slowed down. She continued to do whatever she was doing, completely focused on her task.

Errant didn't even hesitate. It was clear that he was more worried about Dragon than Coil. "Emergency. I'm heading to Toronto. Try to handle things here on your own," he said to everyone in the room. From Abyssal's point of view, I watched him jump out the window and glide down to his new motorcycle. It transformed and flew off into the air. As impressive as his new tech was, I couldn't believe he was abandoning us _now_ of all times.

What the hell! Wasn't that Narwhal or the Toronto PRT's problem? Not that I didn't care about Dragon, but even so, could he even do anything useful after an hour's flight time?

I also wondered what they could even do to Dragon. I mean, normally they just stole some of her weapons or just acted like a nuisance, right? What was the big deal this time? Had they been trying to hijacking her mobile workshop with Lisa inside of it? But without an internet or radio connection any more, it shouldn't be an issue any longer. Whatever the problem was, I had to concentrate on Coil, and finish what we'd started.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Well, the Coil takedown finally begins.

Not that I'm any kind of expert writer, but a general piece of advice I give to other writers and I try to follow myself is _don't be afraid to delete stuff_. Even if it's feels like you threw away a lot of your own efforts, but that's the cost of polish.

In any case I think I deleted an entire chapter and a half that I felt didn't quite work this time around. I think it helped with consistency and pacing a little but even then I still think I could trim more... but I've had so little time to actually write this month as it is. Oh well.


	42. Extension 5

Extension 5

With our side of the story told, Triumph was instantly convinced. Or, it seemed more like he was convinced by the fact that his cousin nodded. "I'm heading back to HQ. I'm going to kick the director's ass myself," he growled.

"Wait, there could be an explanation," Miss Militia cautioned her teammate.

"Like what? What possible excuse could there be for kidnapping my cousin for months?" Triumph shouted back angrily.

"I'm just saying, he could have been Mastered! Or framed! We need to make sure justice is done properly, in accordance with the law," Miss Militia said. "We aren't judge and jury, Triumph. But we can bring him there if we have to."

"Fine. I'm radioing it in to the team, but don't try to stop me," Triumph said.

Funny thing was, even before he said a thing over the radio, Calvert was already starting to make his escape and plant excuses. He again warned that there was a Master situation with New Wave, that some heroes may have been subverted. He gave multiple confusing orders to different people, sending employees running around the building, too busy with pointless chores to realize he had even left his office. In the ensuing chaos and urgency to lock down against a Master threat, Coil walked out unnoticed.

I was planning on trapping him in the elevator, activating the emergency brakes and jamming the mechanisms once he was inside, but he walked right past it to the fire escape.

I then thought about tripping him while he ran down the stairs, but he held the handrail like a responsible adult and moved with a surprising caution. He wasn't going to fall down in any way that could be mistaken for clumsiness. Anything more overt that I did could easily be construed as an aggressive, criminal act, and caught on the building' security cameras.

If there was anything I learned from New Wave's team meetings, the one thing that annoyed Brandish the most was when one of her cases was lost because a criminal got off on some excessive force charge or illegal evidence.

I continued with the subtle sabotage. I detached the battery inside his car and drained it completely of energy. When he got to the garage, he didn't even take his car. Instead he walked out to the street and hailed a cab. Just like Lisa had told us, he had some way of making the "right" decision every time, but I could make things very difficult and corner him. Out in the streets, I had even more control.

By now, the rest of the Protectorate had been alerted by Triumph, but when they began searching the building for him, he was already outside. I disconnected the car's battery and plugged up a gas line – I didn't want to destroy an innocent driver's vehicle to nab Calvert. When the engine sputtered and died, Calvert didn't wait for the cab to get fixed. He threw some money at the driver, got out, and started rushing down the street.

I let the cab start up normally again after Calvert was gone. I was no mechanic, I just hoped I hadn't done any permanent damage.

"**Calvert moving,"** I had Abyssal tell everyone.

"Where?" Triumph was quick to respond.

"**Follow.**" While my bots slowed down Calvert, I had Abyssal lead the heroes to him.

Abyssal rushed past all the police, PRT, and reporters that were surrounding City Hall. Leaping over vehicles and people was no problem. Miss Militia and Triumph followed him with some difficulty, but I made sure I went slow enough for them to keep up.

* * *

There was definitely some confusion among the ranks of the PRT and Protectorate, but unfortunately for us, not enough. I had to respect the fact that the PRT had trained for confusing situations like this.

"_Potential Master/Stranger, level 4, move in on villain group New Wave._"

The orders came over the radio, and they acted on their previously-known information without Calvert directing them. I may have compromised the chain of command but they weren't headless.

Inside his office, the mayor could see the action out the window. The building had no hidden entrances and a large, open lawn, so it was easy to watch the PRT troops storm the building. "Lady Photon? It looks like they're storming the building."

"They probably believe we took you hostage," Brandish said. "Nobody resist. Stay calm and let them take us into custody. Keep your cameras rolling."

I followed their example and didn't use my bots to hinder the troops. They were all sitting calmly around the office when the troops rushed in. They did throw in a flashbang, which was probably unnecessary but they did it for their own safety. My bots were blinded, the team was blinded, the cameras may have been damaged.

Within seconds, the PRT team rushed in. They did handle my team somewhat roughly – pinning them to the ground before they even recovered from the flashbang. However, my team followed Brandish's orders to get on the ground and let themselves be handcuffed, so at least they didn't have to get trapped in containment foam.

At the same time, they did follow procedure – maybe it was because the Mayor was insisting they were heroes, maybe it was because of the presence of a child, maybe it was because of New Wave's reputation before being declared villains out of the blue – but they weren't too rough on my team. That actually surprised me.

They patted everyone down for weapons or suspicious devices – apparently that included the cameras, phones, and radios – before letting anyone up. They were quietly escorted out the front without incident. By now, the news agencies were rushing to ask what happened, especially when they saw the Mayor holding his niece in his arms walking out the door.

* * *

Not too far away, the director was running along the sidewalk, trying to hail another cab when Triumph and Miss Militia finally caught up to him. Perhaps Miss Militia's jeep had a distinctive noise that Calvert recognized, or maybe he was using his power again, but he reacted before they came into sight. Just before everyone rounded the corner, he ducked into a flower shop to try to hide. The others didn't see, but Abyssal pointed him out to them.

"Fancy seeing you here, Director," Triumph snarled. "Didn't think the current emergency would be solved with flowers."

"Triumph. This isn't your assigned patrol route," Calvert said, trying to act normal. As calm as his voice was, I could tell he was running out of ideas. Good.

"And this doesn't look like your office," Triumph countered.

Miss Militia joined her patrol partner with her glowing power in the form of a taser. "Sir, several sources have accused you of kidnapping, child abuse, drug trafficking, among other things. It would be best if you came with us quietly and cleared things up."

Calvert seemed to be thinking really hard, trying to find a way to talk himself out of this. "You're all cooperating with villains. You've been Mastered. Report to M-S isolation now. That's an order."

"No, sir, I don't think I will," Miss Militia said. "Console, did you get that?"

I didn't wait for their response. This was taking too long, and my team would be carted away from public view soon, where evidence could be buried and "forgotten" under some convoluted bureaucracy. I wanted his face on the news. I wanted Dinah to single him out in public. I wanted everyone to see him for what he was, _now_.

I had Abyssal appear behind him and grab him. If his parahuman ability revolved around him making the right choice every time, the best bet was to give him no choices at all. I restrained and stopped him from talking, then carried him out through the doorway.

**"Follow. City Hall."**

Right now was the best chance to have everyone in one place – along with a lot of cameras – and solve things once and for all. The mayor and my team were still making their way out the building, and the journalists, being eager for the first scoop, were crowding them, asking plenty of questions. Amazingly, the mayor was obliging them, though he wasn't telling them all the details. But the fact that his missing niece was walking behind him spurred lots of camera clicks and shouting.

Now I brought them something else to fuss over. Abyssal arrived with Triumph and Miss Militia trailing behind. Dauntless, Assault, and Battery were trying to secure the scene as well, along with some of the Wards. It looked like everyone was here right now, although most of them looked like they were there to keep New Wave in check. Even though everyone on my team was cooperating, as Brandish was reminding them all.

I think Triumph was, thankfully, still on my side and convincing his team not to take down Abyssal for kidnapping their boss, but his teammates weren't having it.

Dauntless floated above and put himself between Abyssal and the PRT troops escorting the mayor with his arclance held out. "Triumph. Master prompt sigma three, lemon sherbet pie."

Triumph stopped. "Response, kappa seven, steel crosswire weld. I'm not mastered, Dauntless. You know who that is," he said, pointing at the Mayor.

"Yeah. I also know who _that_ is," Dauntless responded, pointing at Calvert.

"I think the question we should be asking is if the girl knows who he is," Triumph said, this time pointing at Dinah, who was being shielded by her parents.

Abyssal presented Coil to them. That is, held them by the neck so everyone could get a clear look at him. Everyone hesitated when they saw him dangling helplessly, except Dinah. The girl cowered behind her parents even more. With the threat of a battle, the journalists had quieted down. Many people heard Dinah saying, "No, no, no more questions!"

"Dinah? Do you know this man?" her father asked.

"He kept me locked up after they tied you up. He kept asking me questions," she said. "After I got out, he put me away again before I could get home." Tears started to well up in her eyes as she latched on to her father's shirt and buried her face in it.

Dauntless hovered there, trying to absorb the information, looking unsure.

"Still think everyone's Mastered?" Triumph challenged him.

Dauntless rounded on Abyssal. "Let go of the Director," he said.

I obliged. Director Calvert dropped to the ground on all fours, wheezing. When he caught his breath, he shouted at the PRT troops, "What are you waiting for? Arrest them! He's gone rogue!"

The Mayor responded first. "No, you idiots. Arrest him!" he shouted while pointing at Calvert. "He's responsible for kidnapping my niece!"

Dauntless and Velocity maintained defensive positions, but didn't move. "All I know is that you're working with someone who kidnapped the Director," he said, directing his gaze at Abyssal.

"Sorry, but I'm going to have to side with Triumph on this one," Battery said.

"What?" Dauntless said in surprise.

"I recognize her. We rescued her from Coil's secret lair, just over a month ago, though it was mostly New Wave's effort. We were mostly there for clean-up. I know she was escorted to the PRT base for treatment and possible addiction to Tinkertech drugs."

"Yeah, I remember too," Assault added. "Is that her? How could nobody manage a positive ID after we took her in? The basic missing child search should have got a match right away."

"A month ago. You know that my niece has been missing since March?" the Mayor asked. "Why was I not informed that she'd been found?"

"Do you have ANY idea what we've been going through? You knew where our daughter was and you did nothing?" Mrs. Alcott shouted angrily.

"We didn't identify her right away. She was unconscious and, uh, in pretty bad condition," Assault said defensively.

Miss Militia nodded. "I remember the report. She was handed to the medical team, and transferred to a dedicated facility before she woke up. It was unusually fast, to be honest, but it didn't break protocol. Console, please look up report number CR0119943837-028 and tell me when facial recognition was run on her."

There was some muttering on the radio that I didn't hear clearly, but obviously all the Protectorate members heard it. This time, Dauntless turned on the Director as well. "Why the hell would you place a delay on child victim identification?"

"WEDGDG protocol. It's classified," Calvert said. "All of this is a setup. If you let me back to my office, I can explain to those who have clearance. Now anyone who doesn't help arrest these villains will be suspended for insubordination."

"Suspend me now, then." Triumph called his bluff and stepped forward. The others were similarly hesitant to move.

"Uh... Master/Stranger protocols still on?" Aegis asked cautiously. As the oldest and Wards leader, he didn't know what to do with his own group of young capes.

Triumph shook his head. "If we're lucky, it's the Director that needs them."

The mayor spoke once more. "I'll tell you what he needs. Handcuffs. Well, what are you waiting for?" he said to the police officers.

* * *

With Calvert and everybody else being taken into custody, the rest was now up to Brandish and actual legal efforts. Hopefully the police would actually do their jobs.

That let me put more focus on to Princess and Dragon. I still didn't have the full picture of what was happening on their end. She was still working on the computers, most of which looked like they were busy copying copious numbers of files or loading things. Princess was finally sitting back and drinking some coffee, monitoring the progress on all the screens. At least she wasn't running around frantically any more.

**"Princess. Coil secured. Give me the full story?"**

"Finally, some fucking good news," she said. "Well, I still can't do much to help Dragon before Errant arrives in Toronto, and I'll have to be hands-on then. What do you want to know?"

**"Dragon. When?"**

"It was just slightly after I broke through the PRT servers to get some more evidence," she said. "At first, I got booted out, and Dragon stopped talking. I thought she was just annoyed at me because, you know, she doesn't want me to steal stuff from the government, you know? But it was more than that. I realized she was getting hacked."

A cyberattack. Against Dragon.

Why?

No, wrong question.

**"How?****"**

"First off, there's something you need to know. Dragon isn't a person. She's an AI," Princess explained. "So, yeah. You think it was crazy to try to hack Dragon's systems before? Elevate that to insane."

Okay. So Dragon, who was not only the world's most powerful Tinker, was also an AI. Did the Dragonslayers really have the capability to actually hurt her? They barely slowed her down, and for the most part seemed like a sideshow that occasionally vandalized her equipment. Nobody really considered them a true threat.

Was there a hacker anywhere in the world who could possibly harm Dragon? Especially now that I knew she was an AI, so she could literally operate faster than any human. The Yangban, maybe? Had China just added another cape, a tinker or technopath to their ranks? No, that didn't make sense. Dragon never acted against China directly; they benefited from her inventions, especially when they ignored Canadian patent law anyway.

**"****_How?"_** I repeated.

"Yeah, exactly what I thought. But I started to realize that Dragon's 'connection issues' was actually her, glitching out. She's basically been Mastered – sort of. She's been programmed with a few restrictions. For one, even entertaining the idea of AI is off-limits. She gets a sudden bout of amnesia if it crosses her mind. I've been snooping on her the entire time I've been living in here, but I thought I would have had more time to figure her out."

**"Dragonslayers. More powerful?"**

Princess shook her head. "This isn't a matter of taking over Dragon's systems. The Dragonslayers managed to attack Dragon _herself_. There's no way they could have possibly maintained an attack against her; all she needed to do was cut off all connections and purge her systems. It also doesn't seem like they were physically _with_ Dragon, wherever her program is stored. The IP trace wasn't anywhere close."

**"Tech cape? Tinker?" **I was trying to figure out the possibilities. Nobody was truly invincible – Alexandria, the invincible superhero, had been injured by the Siberian, after all. Dragon may have been a cybernetic equivalent of Alexandria, but she, too, could have had some particular weakness to some specific cape.

"That's always a possibility, like a software tinkering specialist that could make a hyper-adaptive virus or trojan. But most of the… malfunction and damage I was seeing to Dragon seemed to come from the inside out. She didn't have a chance. I think it's some kind of built-in killswitch. It's similar to her inability to think about AI. Whoever originally created her put some kind of… emergency delete button. And the Dragonslayers got the key to the back door."

If the Dragonslayers had some kind of special access to Dragon's backdoors and restrictions - well, it didn't seem so strange any more. Why these super-hacker villains were so good at targeting Dragon but could barely steal a few bucks from the bank. They didn't have to be hyper-competent hackers when they had the keys to the kingdom.

Of course, publicly, the Dragonslayers always claimed they were heroes, and that Dragon was secretly evil. Having worked with her, I doubted it. And the fact that they used stolen equipment from Dragon to steal more things instead of, well, hacking – it should have been obvious they weren't as talented as they claimed; that their "white hat" hacking was just an excuse for incompetence.

But that didn't solve the problem. In fact, it presented an even greater one. If the Dragonslayers simply deleted Dragon instead of overpowering her… then I doubted they had the skill to fix her if they had done irreparable damage. It took no skill to hit an off switch.

**"Can we save her?"** Possibly the most important question of the day.

She didn't answer right away. "Maybe. I have a few ideas. But it also depends a lot on what Errant manages to get out of the Dragonslayers."

* * *

Back in Brockton Bay, things were wrapping up. Mostly. Calvert was bound and handcuffed, and marched into a regular police paddy wagon. I swarmed bots under the vehicle, to keep track of it in case he made another escape attempt. Sundancer was also back in custody. Purity had given up, and allowed herself to be taken into custody as well.

Unfortunately, the police over near Purity's house had gotten the message that New Wave were labeled villains, but hadn't gotten the rest of the story. Laserdream and Glory Girl were also arrested. Thankfully Princess and I had both managed to give them a quick heads-up, and they knew to turn themselves in quietly until it was sorted out.

Now came the hard part. Actually getting Calvert convicted.

As a PRT director, the PRT itself would want to save face by quietly burying the issue instead of giving Calvert the spotlight in court. And because of that, they wouldn't be keen on quickly reversing his decisions and orders. Not publicly, at least. Having been declared villains by said director, our words wouldn't carry as much weight in the case against him.

Not surprisingly, everyone was being escorted to the police station. Laserdream and Glory Girl might take longer because they would have to be transferred between states. The rest of New Wave was doing better, cooperating with police. Although they were having trouble providing anything more than their own testimony, because the PRT troops had stripped them of their phones, radios, and cameras.

They weren't the only ones working the case. Already, I could see that several lawyers with PRT badges were already walking into the foyer of the BBPD building before Calvert even arrived. And at the outskirts of my range, I could see backup Protectorate and PRT forces coming from other cities.

This was going to be a clusterfuck that I really hope Brandish was prepared for.

Honestly, I didn't expect the PRT to play fair. New Wave might be branded villains permanently, or at least, until the case was over. The evidence they had taken might "accidentally" get lost. I knew how bureaucracy worked when they wanted to cover their own asses.

Thankfully, we still had backups. I hope.

**"Princess. Backup evidence?"**

"…fuck."

**"Define 'fuck.'"**

"Look, I was trying to save Dragon's life, okay? I had to delete all the local files and save as much of Dragon as I possibly could. I know she was backing them up in real-time on her main servers."

**"Can you access?"** We needed those videos. Not just to prove Calvert's guilt but also that we hadn't planted evidence and weren't Mastered.

"No. Maybe. I don't know," Princess sighed. "Our best chance is to try to revive Dragon. Her security is seriously powerful. And we need to rescue her if we're going to get access to those. Not that I'm saying we shouldn't try to revive her anyway – it would be an absolute disaster if the Birdcage stopped, you know, keeping the prisoners inside."

**"We?"**

"Yes. Us."

* * *

**Author's Notes**:

I made a big mistake: I started a game of Civilization VI. A few turns later and it's 3AM and my sleep schedule's whacked up all week.


	43. Interlude 8: Narwhal

Interlude 8: Narwhal

"Narwhal, this is Errant. I need a favour."

This was not a call that Narwhal was expecting. Errant came highly recommended by Dragon, as well as his excellent prior record as Armsmaster. Even she considered his dismissal to be overly heavy-handed, but she didn't have the details of the inner politics of the ENE branch. "Errant. You've been a member of the Guild for less than twenty-four hours and you already need help? We expect more self-sufficiency from our members," she responded.

"I am crossing the border in thirty minutes by low-altitude aircraft. Inbound to Toronto. I require fast-tracked border clearance."

Guild members were supposed to focus on large-scale threats, national to global scale issues. Getting clearance for a border crossing was a simple and common task. Still, she needed some more information than that for an approval. "Details?"

"Dragonslayers. Dragon herself is dying."

If there was at least one thing Narwhal could appreciate about Errant, at least, was that he knew how to convey pertinent information quickly. It let her focus on the objective quickly.

"You'll get your clearance. Where did you get your intel?"

"High-level Thinker working directly with Dragon and myself," Errant replied.

"Dragonslayers are nomadic. You sure they're in Toronto?" Narwhal wasn't exactly doubting the intel, but it was more about the annoyance that an enemy had been lurking directly in her territory. The failure of security, the gap in intel, the fog of war: it grated on her.

"Highest likelihood, based on IP trace. A cyberattack of this caliber requires minimized latency and fewest possible proxies."

Narwhal didn't try to argue the details. She was not the expert on digital warfare, and she trusted the specialists with their expertise. What mattered now was their response.

An attack on Dragon was an attack on the Guild. Dragon had been one of the key members of the Guild's revival and subsequent elevation to the globally-recognized organization it was today. And, to be frank, it was still too dependent on Dragon for Narwhal's liking. Not that she didn't trust Dragon, but single points of failure were always a bad idea. And today would be a test of that idea.

She would have to prove the Guild was still a force not to be trifled with, even without Dragon. Whether Dragon recovered from this or not, it exposed a major weakness, and other villains would pounce on it. Today, she needed a display of strength.

* * *

The Guild dealt with worldwide S-class threats; they couldn't afford weekly meetings or whatnot. But when one of its members was under attack, and when the loss of that member would basically be equivalent to an S-class threat... well, all the Guild members would be working to bring that threat down, wouldn't they?

Unfortunately, one of its best advantages was also a weakness. Its members acted more independently than Protectorate members, with less bureaucratic oversight, and were spread around the globe. That also meant there weren't many members available on-hand. Narwhal could request more support from the local PRT, but Toronto only had a few members to spare at the moment. She had to gather them on short notice and prepare a briefing for them.

In her mind, she needed the briefing for herself as well, because she needed to re-contextualize all the previous intel she had on the target.

The Dragonslayers may have gotten away with their antics before, because as far as anyone knew they were merely small-time, delusional conspiracy theorists at best. Technology theft was the worst they'd managed, while spouting a lot of anti-Dragon conspiracy theories. They had been loud, but not dangerous. Their greatest feat had been stealing three of Dragon's power suits, but she manufactured those by the dozen. And given how little they'd done with those suits, many assumed they either damaged them irreparably in the process, or simply didn't know how to use them properly.

Narwhal regretted misjudging the threat level that the Dragonslayers presented, but there was no time to wallow in guilt. She would find those pests and drop the hammer on them. Finding out where they had been hiding would be quick, especially their new member Errant, who already had a rough idea of where they could be.

"Errant. I need more information. How precisely can you narrow down their location?" Narwhal asked.

"I'm sending you the coordinates," came his reply. "Consider the data Tinker and Thinker reviewed."

So he was still working with the Thinker at this moment? Narwhal remembered Dragon mentioning a potential Guild candidate alongside Errant, one who hadn't taken up the offer. Former small-time criminal, rebranded as Princess. The Guild had taken on far worse parahumans before, with some success. If she proved effective in saving Dragon's life, Narwhal herself would push the Canadian government for a deferred sentence, residency status, and inclusion in the Guild.

"Let me speak to the Thinker," Narwhal told Errant.

"_Princess here. What do you need to know?"_ Her voice was younger than she expected.

"How are they performing this attack? How exactly are they affecting Dragon?" Narwhal asked.

"_You know why Dragon has remained reclusive all this time? Well, the Dragonslayers managed to penetrate the core systems that keep her alive. That's how,"_ Princess answered.

Despite working together for years, Dragon had never told Narwhal exactly what her personal condition was that kept her isolated. She got the sense that Dragon wasn't satisfied with the hand that life had dealt her, but it wasn't enough to prevent her from being a hero. Information security was something she could respect; a powerful cape with a known weakness was going to be an easy target for villains.

Villains like the Dragonslayers.

Even if they knew her weakness, the attack was also unexpected because it was the biggest, boldest, and most direct assault against Dragon anyone on the planet had ever attempted. The Dragonslayers must have known it was practically a suicide attempt. Dragon was a loner, but a well-protected one. Not only did she have her own personal defenses, her critical role in supplying the PRT with containment foam, her many drones ready for rapid deployment in search-and-rescue or cape fights, her coordination in Endbringer fights, not to mention her maintenance of the Birdcage... the world owed her. An attack on her was an attack against law, order, and human society as a whole.

Any attack with this little foresight meant that they were probably willing to fight to the death. A suicide run, going down in a blaze of glory like the romanticized kamikaze pilots. Those types were always hard to deal with.

"What are the chances we can save her? How much time do we have?" Narwhal asked.

"_The sooner the better, but I need eyes-on to make the call. I have access to Errant's cameras. I can direct you better from here,"_ Princess said.

"ETA twenty minutes," Errant added.

"Meet me at the site, my team is on the way," Narwhal said as she took off. The faster, the better. She would give all the other participant capes a mobile briefing en route.

* * *

"Thank you all for your assistance. The mission is to take down the Dragonslayers by any means necessary. They are currently engaging in a cyberattack against Dragon, and her status is unknown. Chances are they may be attacking whatever security or medical equipment that Dragon needs to live, and she's been out of contact for half an hour. The worst part is that they've been hiding right under our noses this entire time. This is not acceptable. We flush them out and capture or kill them today."

The PRT was able to field a single rapid-response PRT team and transport, along with a few members. Others were listening in by radio, agreeing to meet on-site.

"Kill?" Axl was a Protectorate cape who had been patrolling nearby, who had volunteered to assist. Obviously, killing was not something that the Protectorate liked dealing with.

"Yes. The Dragonslayers are fanatics. Assume that they are willing to die for their beliefs. They are expecting lethal levels of retaliation at minimum and considered it acceptable prior to engagement. Any attempt at negotiation is highly likely to be just a ruse to buy more time. A Kill Order is being fast-tracked as we speak, as we presume that this attack is meant to release inmates from the Birdcage."

"What are we up against? Is this everyone?" Gyst asked. She was Axl's patrol partner.

"The mission begins as soon as the Guild's newest member, Errant, arrives. Artactique is providing the battle plan remotely. An independent Thinker will also be assisting in real-time," Narwhal told them.

The Dragonslayers were known to be nomadic, setting up camp only for short periods, stealing power and leeching internet access wherever they could. While that made them difficult to track, it also meant they could never get a truly entrenched and fortified position. At best, they had the drone suits that they had stolen from Dragon, but even those could be overcome. Dragon had provided the exact specifications and countermeasures; the suits they had were out of date and obsolete.

"Breathtaker, your job is to prevent their escape. Their suits primarily rely on jet propulsion. A vacuum in their intake will kill their engines quickly, and you're authorized to do the same to their lungs," Narwhal said. "Axl, you're support. Focus on disorientation. Hotstuff, Vangarda, perimeter patrol and scout. Stop anyone that Breathtaker can't. Begin now. Make sure they aren't slipping in with the civilians."

The troop transport screeched to a halt in large parking lot. Everyone unloaded quickly, and those who already had their orders flew or ran towards the strip-mall that was being cordoned off by PRT and police.

"Everyone else is with me on assault. Hammerjack, Arkon, Leadshine, Ali-bee. The plan is simple. Shock and awe. Standard breach and blind Type D with Brute 6 resistance."

"You're speaking my language," Hammerjack said, banging his fists together.

"_Narwhal, I'm seeing an incoming bogey at five o'clock,"_ Breathtaker radioed in.

"_That would be me,"_ said Errant. _"ETA eight seconds."_

"Operation is underway!" Narwhal announced.

Despite the entire team already having arrived, Errant was the first to attack. While everyone else was running across the parking lot, Errant didn't even try to find a parking space. He deliberately rammed his flying bike into the building in some kind of rapid crash landing. It smashed through the ground floor and right into the basement, but his heavy power armour withstood the impact well.

Narwhal flew in right behind Errant. The room they landed in was devoid of people but had lots of space, boxes, and blind corners. A storage area for one of the big-box retail stores above ground. Narwhal instantly projected hundreds of shields around the breach to prevent any ambushes or booby traps while the rest of the team joined them.

"The hack is ongoing. Don't destroy any electronics," Errant said. "We might need them to fix Dragon's systems."

They identified a hidden door, and Hammerjack blew it off its hinges with two swift punches. Leadshine tossed in a flashbang, but the Dragonslayers were ready for them. All three of the stolen Dragon suits were waiting, and opened fire as soon as the door came down, and they completely ignored the effects of the flashbang. They had given the suits upgrades – originally designed for rescue and recovery operations, defending supplies from raiders were the most action they had been designed for. They weren't supposed to be lethal, but the Dragonslayers had done some slapdash upgrades – extra armour plating and guns strapped to them.

Narwhal projected multiple forcefields to protect her team, while Errant didn't seem to care. Bullets went ricocheting off his armour, which was far tougher than its size implied – not that it was small in any way. While smaller than the Dragon suit, his own suit had multiple compact strength enhancing servos, allowing him to fight one of them hand-to-hand against one-ton suits.

He got in close, too close for their guns to be of any help. He took one of them down with judo-like movements, while the Dragonslayer merely flailed about. Their teammates tried to turn on him as well, but that just gave Narwhal an opportunity to create forcefields in the joints of the machines. The Dragon drones were stuck in position.

Once the threat of gunfire was gone, Arkon and Leadshine advanced into the room. Arkon filled the room with blinding light and used his power to give the light mass. It caused an explosion-like effect, pushing everyone outwards, but not nearly as violent. It pinned down everyone who didn't have super-strength, pressing them against the floor or walls.

That bought Narwhal even more time to fully disable the Dragon suits.

As Arkon and Leadshine released their combined powers, Narwhal began to slice apart the suits to pull their operators out. "You idiots have made a hell of a mistake today," Narwhal said to them. Their leader, Saint, was apparently in one of them.

"We've just saved the world. You have no idea," Saint sneered at her. "Dragon has gone rogue, it was going to rebel against humanity!"

"What's this guy talking about?" Leadshine asked.

"That's a friend and comrade you're attacking. Tell me exactly what you've done to her," Narwhal said, her voice as sharp as the blades she projected against their throats. The forcefields cut into their skin without effort, causing them to bleed, but not fatally.

"Friend. You've been deceived. Dragon's been lying to you!"

"You're a lunatic. Tell us what you've done!" Errant snarled.

"I already told you. I've saved the world. You might not understand now, but in the future, humanity will worship us as its saviours! We are the ones who have prevented the apocalypse!"

He was just ranting now. Narwhal hated dealing with fanatics, especially ones crazy enough to die for their cause. At least they weren't suicide bombers. On that note... "Search the area carefully. Look for any booby traps. Collect any electronic equipment you can find, so we can figure out what they're doing to Dragon," she ordered her team.

Errant led the way. Hammerjack helped breach other doors, while Narwhal provided further support. Arkon and Leadshine held down the captured members while PRT troops began to spray them down with containment foam. The search didn't take long, though, as the entire base was essentially a hidden basement underneath a strip-mall. Rooms were cleared quickly, and the Dragonslayers didn't have anything that could match the stolen suits in power. The number of computers they found, however, would be a longer and harder search.

"_Narwhal, Hotstuff and I are seeing more people flee the scene on foot_," Vanguardia told them over the radio.

"Are any of them carrying computer equipment?" Errant asked.

"_None that we've found so far,"_ came the reply.

"Search them carefully. Any digital device could be carrying critical information," Narwhal told them. "Breathtaker, did you see any other Dragon suits attempt to escape?"

"_None, just on foot."_

"Then come down here, I want you helping with sweeping and securing the area."

"_Roger that."_

Errant ended the physical search and began to work on several computers at once while the others did a more thorough sweep. He spoke to his Thinker ally via his suit, but Narwhal couldn't hear what was said. A few moments later, he scanned the walls and sliced through some cables with his halberd.

"What was that?"

"Internet connection," he said. "It appeared the hack was ongoing, automatically." While he continued to focus on the computers, the rest of the team moved on to secure other equipment like stolen goods and weapons.

"Are you sure, Princess?" A few moments later, he began typing away at the computers. Saint looked nervous, despite still being blind and pinned down. Even with a hundreds of pounds of force holding down his body, he was able to move his fingers slightly and activate some kind of switch hidden in his sleeve.

Errant's head snapped towards what looked like an old, obsolete computer. He leapt at it tore it apart. Inside was a sleek box with lots of cables sprouting from it – and a bomb which was activating. He yanked the small box out of it and shielded like a baby, and the whole thing exploded not a second later. Shrapnel went flying through the room.

Narwhal couldn't insert a forcefield quickly enough to save everyone. Just her own team members, as she was keeping a close eye on each of them. Errant was right at the epicenter and took the full brunt of the blast. Several Dragonslayer members who were being marched through the area were torn apart by the blast.

"Team, respond!" Narwhal shouted when the ringing in her ears stopped.

"Hammerjack, reporting. No injuries."

"Arkon, reporting. No injuries."

"Leadshine, reporting. Just a scratch."

"Breathtaker, reporting. No injuries."

"Ali-bee, reporting. I'll be fine."

"…Errant?" Narwhal called out.

"Injured. Functional," he grunted. A pile of rubble rumbled and he rose up through it. One of his arms was completely lost, along with the side of his suit. Foam was expanding out the side, covering his wounds, but he was obviously not combat-capable any more.

"You need to get to a hospital," Narwhal said.

"I'll live. I know a healer," Errant said. He held up the small box, cradled in his remaining arm. "This is more important.

Everyone stared at him like he was crazy. "What have you found?" Narwhal asked.

"Dragon's health is directly related to the upkeep of her systems, according to Princess," Errant said. "I believe I may need to use this device to reverse any damage to Dragon's systems. Do you mind if I take it?"

"You look like you're half-dead," Narwhal said. "You need a medic."

"My suit is my medic. Antibacterial and wound-sealing foam. Painkillers. Stimulants. Nutrient fluids. It'll keep me alive until I get to the healer," Errant argued. "Let me work on this. Save Dragon."

Narwhal knew when she had to defer to experts. And Errant was the Tinker expert right now. While she didn't doubt his dedication to the mission, she was doubting his ability to make sound judgments at the moment. But again, she knew time was not a luxury they could afford.

"You maintain continuous radio contact. No operating any motor vehicles, you get a ride from one of us. Maintain records and submit all analysis and information as evidence under Guild protocol. Are you checking on Dragon in-person? She never actually told us where she lives, other than the general vicinity of Vancouver. I was hoping that, since the two of you collaborated so often, she trusted you with her location..."

"I will," Errant assured the Guild leader. "I know her well. This may require in-person repair of her systems."

Narwhal tried to suppress the jealousy. Dragon had never told her where she actually lived, even though they had known each other much longer. She didn't press the issue and justified it as part of security protocols. How did Errant find out? Then again, they were both Tinkers. Maybe they just… understood each other on a deeper level. Perhaps she should have been happy for her friend to have found someone to trust.

"One more thing," Errant said as he was turning to leave.

"What is it?" Narwhal asked.

"Princess says she needs to be on-site to facilitate Dragon's recovery. And to utilize this device properly," he said, indicating the box he was carrying. "Could you grant her clearance to head to Vancouver? Along with several other allies and some equipment."

"Give me their names, I'll grant it. We need Dragon back ASAP," Narwhal said. "But I'm coming along."


	44. Existential 1

Existential 1

At the hospital, Panacea and I were greeted by one of the hospital administrators along with the security team. They looked rather sheepish.

"Uh, Panacea and Eunoia… have you heard the news?"

Panacea looked at me suspiciously because I guess she expected me to just know everything. She wasn't wrong… I gave her a tight-lipped nod and exasperated exhale. I wanted to hear how they would phrase it.

"No, tell us," Panacea said.

"Well, the director of the ENE branch declared the entire New Wave organization to be villains," she began, and held up her hands defensively. "And I know the two of you have been doing fantastic work, not that we're doubting you, but for legal reasons, we, uh, can't be seen employing villains, you see. I'm sure it's all just a big misunderstanding, but we need to suspend your volunteer services until all this is sorted out."

Panacea opened her mouth, but closed it again and just shook her head with annoyance. "Let's just go. Stupid bureaucratic bullshit," she muttered.

The security guards just escorted us out, leaving a lot of other people confused as we walked out the doors. I gathered up my bots to create another Roamer and a hollow version of Abyssal, just so he could give the two of us a ride home in relative privacy.

I updated her on what had happened during the Calvert takedown with the rest of her family in Brockton Bay. However, I didn't tell her everything about Dragon – I didn't know for sure what was going on, and Princess could update both of us at the same time. Right now, she seemed pretty busy coordinating something with Errant, so I didn't want to interrupt her.

* * *

By the time the two of us got back home, Lisa seemed to be at ease again. I knocked on the side panel of Dragon's workshop. I watched Lisa fiddle with several switches to get the door open manually.

"What exactly happened, Lisa? And why did Errant ditch us?" I asked as Amy and I stepped inside.

Lisa looked around, peeked outside to the street, and then ushered both of us in. She closed the door before saying anything.

"Okay, if we have any chance of saving Dragon's life, I'm going to have to let you in on part of the secret. None of this leaves this room."

Amy looked at Lisa, then to me. She seemed surprised at the fact that I wasn't surprised at all. "Alright. Hit me."

"So, Dragon's basically almost dead," Lisa said. "How do you feel about saving her life?"

"Dragon? You mean, _the_ Dragon?"

"Yes, her. She's dying. Would you save her life?"

"Of course I would. That's a dumb question. She's one of the greatest heroes on Earth," Amy said. "Is there a catch?"

"What if there was… more healing than required than average?" Lisa said.

"What, is she actually a Case 53 or something like that?" Amy asked.

"Not as such, no," Lisa said evasively. "How about the fact that you're going to have to stop treating patients here and travel to Vancouver just to save one person instead?"

Amy snorted. "It's not like I'll be getting a whole lot of healing done here right now."

"What? Oh, the villain thing," Lisa said. "Right. That's not going to stop us, we don't need to work under PRT rules anyway."

"This isn't PRT-approved?"

"Not exactly. It's Guild-approved. Long story short. Narwhal and the Toronto Protectorate managed to take down the Dragonslayers with help from yours truly. Errant, Narwhal, and basically the rest of the Guild want to save Dragon's life, and the PRT isn't going to say no, so she's pulling some strings to get it done faster. I've told her that all of us will be needed for the job."

"Thanks for the giving us the choice, Lisa," I said sarcastically. Not that I was going to refuse to save Dragon, but Lisa sometimes did things that made me feel like a machine without free will.

"Hey, you still have a choice," she said. "Worst thing that happens is that the airplane leaves with an empty seat. And, you know, Dragon dies."

"Yeah, yeah. I get it," I told her. "So what are we waiting for?"

Lisa pointed to her phone on the desk. "Phone call. Narwhal needs to get us special exemptions to cross the border because we don't have passports. After that, we're good to go."

"Huh? Passport? But I didn't have to do that when we went for Behemoth…" I said.

"This isn't an Endbringer Truce. That isn't just an agreement between heroes and villains, there's international treaties that allow capes to jump around without revealing their identities. As bad as Dragon's situation is, it's not enough to invoke an Endbringer Truce."

I didn't think I even had a passport. It was the kind of thing Dad would have dealt with, and… well, we didn't have enough money to travel much anyway. Hell, the furthest I'd ever travelled before becoming a Cape was New York, and that was before mom died. After… well, we never even left town.

Heck, even if I had one, it probably burned down along with the house. On that note, I should probably tell dad what I was going to be doing.

"I'm going inside to let Dad know," I told them. I could see that he was already back from his part-time job, and he was trying to make himself useful as the only non-cape member of the household by being a handyman. I knew this was far from the high point of his life, but it was still better than a couple of months ago before I got powers.

* * *

"Good afternoon, Taylor! Back from the hospital already?" he asked. "I could fix up some lunch for you."

"Um, no need, Dad. I have to tell you something. I have to leave for a while."

Dad turned to me with fear in his eyes. "Please don't tell me it's another Endbringer attack. I could barely stand listening to the news about t he last one…"

"It's not an Endbringer attack," I said plainly.

"Oh. Okay. What is it, then?" The surprise and relief was instant.

"I'm going to Vancouver along with Amy and Lisa, we're going to try to save Dragon's life," I told him.

"Wow. Like, the Dragon?"

"Yeah, her. I don't know how long it's going to take, but it might be a while."

"Even for Panacea?" he asked.

"Yeah, the situation is, uh, complicated. So who knows, it might be a week, maybe more. We won't know until we get there."

"Alright," he said. He gave me a hug. "Stay safe, Taylor. Be careful. Watch out for…" he started to say, his voice full of concern.

"Dad, I'm going to Canada, not the Congo. Jeez. And we're just doing some healing. And Narwhal's going to be with us."

"Wow, you're really getting to know all the celebrities these days, huh? How long until you meet Alexandria?"

"Ha ha, very funny, dad. I gotta go, see you in a while! Don't get too bored!" I ran out the door to join Lisa and Amy, because I could see that Lisa had just received a phone call.

* * *

Lisa leaped at the phone on the first ring, before I could even leave the house.

"Hello? Oh, hi Brandish. Yeah. Uh-huh. Yep, she's here. Let me put you on speaker."

"_Amy? Just letting you know, it might be a while until we get home. We're sorting things out with the police and my legal team, then we have to pick up Victoria and Crystal."_

"Hi Carol. Yeah, I heard the news," Amy said.

"_Good. Then hang tight until we sort things out with our lawyers. This could be a long case and we need to gather evidence. Princess, can you send us backups of the videos? The PRT confiscated the cameras and they aren't releasing them any time soon. I want my legal team to see it first to make a better case. We'll also need Dragon's testimony."_

"Problem with that, Brandish," Lisa said. "Dragon was the one storing the backups. The Dragonslayers hit us at the same time and a lot of stuff got messed up, including her, uh, life-support. She's not in any condition to talk right now. She's probably got multiple backups, but we need to save her first before we can retrieve the data."

"Save Dragon? Is she requesting Panacea?"

"The Guild is requesting Panacea and Eunoia. And Errant. Believe me when I tell you that whatever the Dragonslayers did, it was huge. All hands on deck for this one," Lisa said.

"Well get to it, then. There are criminals in the Birdcage I've put in there myself, and I'd rather they not escape," Brandish said. "But Amy, I want you back home as soon as possible after Dragon's healed, do you understand?"

"Fine, I understand," Amy said.

"Talk to you later! I'm expecting a call from Narwhal soon," Lisa said. She hung up abruptly and turned to Amy. "Huh. Pretty strict curfew for saving a hero's life, don't you think?"

"That's my mother," grumbled Amy.

I walked in on them after the call ended. "So, I missed nothing did I?"

Lisa just nodded to me and then turned to Amy. "Think about it this way, you can do a whole lot of healing this time without your mom, or the PRT, looking over your shoulder. Forget your mom, the Guild will be happy with whatever you manage to do."

Amy sighed. "Maybe I do need a change of pace…"

"If you want me to lie to her and tell her it took a longer time than it really did, I've got no problem with that," Lisa said. She grinned and elbowed me.

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, sure, me too. If you want a longer vacation in Vancouver, I'll back you up and say it was super complex. Because it probably _will_ be super complex."

The phone rang again, and Lisa jumped at it again.

"Hello? Oh, Narwhal! Yes! Absolutely, we can be ready to go in two shakes." She hung up before we could get a word in with Narwhal. "Alright, Amy, time to pack! We can help you get ready quicker, and then we can go!"

Amy looked at the two of us. "Why, aren't you two going to pack anything?"

Lisa gestured behind her. "Literally everything I own is right here," she said. "As for Taylor… the only thing you need to pack is more nanobots, right? Even the clothes you have right now are nanobots."

"Yeah, basically." I could just pack suitcases to the weight limit with nanobots and brains, but I didn't need my hands to do that. My bots could do it themselves. Actually, I could probably just make the suitcase out of bots too, for more efficiency.

I also had to put all my brains on the east coast into stasis again. I could continue with my expansion when I got back, now that I knew they could hold together well enough while I was gone. Maybe even get started on a bit of west coast coverage while I was in Vancouver.

"How long have I got?" Amy asked.

"Calling a taxi right now," Lisa said as she tapped away on her phone. "They'll probably be here in fifteen minutes," she predicted before the phone call even connected. I didn't doubt her.

* * *

As Amy started packing her bags, I helped by bringing other things like her toothbrush and towel from the bathroom to her bedroom.

Upon seeing the items scurry across the floor surprised her for a second before she realized what was going on. "You don't have to do that, Taylor."

"Sure I do. Taxi's almost here." I could see it coming down the street.

Lisa went out to meet it. She hauled multiple boxes from the workshop into the taxi. It was a minivan-type taxi, and she was filling up the entire cargo area. There would be barely enough for Amy's small suitcase.

"That's a bit more luggage than I was expecting," I said to Lisa when I got outside.

"It's not mine, it's for Dragon," she said. "I got us extra luggage tags. And a bunch of fragile and sensitive Tinker equipment labels. It'll be fine."

"That fast?" I asked.

"The Guild does it all the time for Dragon," Lisa explained. "Canadian Airlines handles it regularly."

"So what's the luggage limit?" I asked her. That meant I could stuff even more nanobots into the cargo area.

"Enough. I think the taxi is the limiting factor," she said, pointing at the already-sagging suspension.

I still loaded up as much as I could manage, though.

* * *

The nearest international airport with a direct flight to Vancouver was in Boston. While that cost a hefty chunk of change for the taxi ride, Lisa paid for it easily. We arrived at the airport and found the tickets were waiting for us – for our cape personas.

That meant we had to travel in-costume and go through an additional security check before being allowed on, but honestly it wasn't a huge inconvenience when you considered they had done this in a matter of hours.

The flight was close to full, but not too crowded. Oddly enough, they had given us business-class tickets. I guess a few extra thousand dollars wasn't much to a major organization like the Guild. And a quick glance at the back of the plane told me that the economy section looked fully booked. The extra cash was probably definitely worth it if it meant getting all of us on an earlier flight.

Lisa assured us that we'd have a lot of work ahead of us. I still had no idea what I could really do for Dragon – what was Lisa really planning? If she was an AI, I didn't think I could really help. And not Amy, either, but Lisa insisted on her coming. Why, though? I supposed it was necessary to keep the secret that Dragon was an AI – bring the world's best healer along, and voila, Dragon gets better a few days later. Nobody would think Panacea healed a computer.

Was that why Lisa had been tiptoeing around the truth with Amy? She would have to find out eventually.

I tried not to think too much about it. It felt strange, since I couldn't _not_ think with thousands of brains connected to my mind constantly. I'd be disconnected from most of them again, and this time I was prepared for it. My range had spread pretty far south, and I only lost touch as the plane took off.

For the first time in a while, I slept. Without being connected to quadrillions of bots and thousands of copies of my own mind spread across the east coast, I felt a whole lot smaller. And tired. I had the bots I stuffed into my luggage, but even that was only a few dozen brains. With nothing to do on the flight, nothing to monitor, and nothing to build, I closed my eyes and let my consciousness drift away.

* * *

The plane's final descent into Vancouver woke me up. As we descended, the late afternoon sun made the reflected over the ocean and made the city look like it had a sparkling background. It was kind of like looking at Brockton Bay again, but mirrored. Not just the fact that the sun and ocean were on the opposite side. It was better. Cleaner. No massive Boat Graveyard cluttering up the waters. No massive swaths of abandoned buildings and empty warehouses. Everything was lit up, tall, proud, gleaming and full of life.

It was like a reminder of what Brockton Bay _could have been_ if it hadn't been for the damn gangs, or the incompetent PRT directors, or the corruption... Okay, Brockton Bay had a lot of things to fix, it wasn't just one thing. But in many other ways it was very similar. It was a thriving port city before Leviathan arrived and caused the shipping industry to collapse. But unlike Brockton Bay, Vancouver managed to shift and continued to thrive, where Brockton Bay entered a downward spiral.

Could all this progress be credited to Dragon? A single cape making such an enormous difference? Could I do the same for Brockton Bay? It almost gave me a sense of what I could be doing. Maybe instead of healing people I could have been healing the entire damn city.

I wasn't completely sure if Vancouver's prosperity was entirely due to Dragon, but it sure seemed like it. When I stepped out of the airport, there was a private robotic cab waiting for us. Courtesy of the Guild, designed and built by Dragon. It felt like stepping into the future. Vancouver seemed to wholly embrace its local Cape celebrity, and her tech was used extensively throughout. We passed by distinctive Dracotek buses, cabs, trains, and even billboards advertising her consumer electronics. The city seemed like a Tinker mecca, which was juxtaposed by the by pristine forests, mountains, and waters that surrounded it.

We didn't have time to explore and appreciate the city. The cab drove from the airport, through the city, and out the opposite side in the mountains. It went up a lonesome dirt road that went upwards through the mountains overlooking the city. It seemed that Dragon liked her privacy, and her facility was self-sufficient with a combination of wind and solar power. The road we had taken was the only one that led to the facility. As we travelled along the road, Lisa pointed out dozens of hidden cameras on the way up. Despite the idyllic settings, it was definitely well-defended and hiding a lot of technology in the woods.

On the way up, I had some bots crawl out of the luggage and out through the car's ventilation systems. The forest looked like a great place use for building more bots, and I would need all the brainpower I could get to tackle the Dragon problem. A little head start couldn't hurt.

* * *

The car parked in an underground garage. We pulled out our luggage and I helped everyone wheel it alongside us. Doors opened automatically and lights in the hallway lit up automatically to show us where to go. It was a little eerie, to be honest. If we hadn't known the building was fully automated and controlled by one of the greatest Tinkers in existence, it would have been perfect for some kind of haunted house movie. Except the building was also immaculately clean, with the exception of a few instrument panels that had clearly been unscrewed with wires sticking out.

"Good. You're here," a gruff voice said over the intercom, which I recognized as Errant's. "Come downstairs to the basement."

Lisa guided me and Amy through the building as if she already knew the place. Some of the doors opened for us automatically, some seemed to be malfunctioning and had to be manually pushed open. When we got downstairs, we stood by a bank of machines that overlooked a massive assembly floor. Something like the mobile workshop that Dragon had parked in Concord, except twenty times bigger. While I could see how perfectly neat and organized it should have been, currently it was a total mess. Wires and cables were strewn everywhere in a tangle; some were chopped in half, a few of them had been haphazardly taped back together. Only one out of the hundreds of cases even had power running, some looked like they had been burnt black in a fire. A strange chemical scent hung in the air, and something strange covered the floor, which I assumed was some kind of fire suppressant.

Errant was sitting there, his halberd on the other side of the room, toolkit in hand. The first thing I noticed was that was his _only _hand. His other arm was… robotic. And not even a nice one, it was a very simple hydraulic arm with a basic clamp for a hand at the end. That robot arm was attached and wired up to a gaping hole in the side of his suit, where his other arm should have been, and I spied a whole lot of bandages.

The missing arm didn't seem to bother him much. He was doing something to one of the many rows of servers that lined the side of the room. He was still attaching cables to a black box while staring at the output through his helmet. He'd even taken off his own armour and plugged parts of that in, presumably using some of the electronics inside of it for the processing power. Once he saw us, he stopped working.

Narwhal was standing quietly, wearing actual clothing this time, watching all of us. She only acknowledged us with a nod.

"Eunoia. Panacea. Princess. Thank you for coming. How much does everyone know?"

Panacea was looking around with confusion, so Princess stepped up. "Eunoia knows some of it, but I haven't told them everything. I figured it would be better if the explanation happened in private. Like, right here," she said. She looked restless, almost desperate to get started.

"Errant… do you need me to heal that arm?" Panacea asked.

"Later. Dragon first," he replied. "I need more biomass anyway. That's how your power works, right?"

"So... where _is_ Dragon?" Panacea asked.

"Before I answer that, I'm going to have to ask that nothing that we say leaves this room. I don't have NDA forms or a government agency to back me up, but I hope we can all agree to this," Princess said, smiling giddily. She looked like she was ready to explode. "I'm Lisa Wilbourn. The kind of secrets we're dealing with, civilian identities are just the tip of the iceberg. I hope we can trust each other enough for that, at least."

Narwhal nodded. "Dragon's always been a dear friend of mine. I'll do whatever we need to save her. I'm Elena Mercier."

Errant sighed, and he removed his helmet. "Likewise. I'd do just about anything to bring Dragon back. Therefore... I thank you all for coming. Whether we succeed or not, you have my gratitude. You already know me, but I'm Colin Wallis." Underneath the mask were the eyes of a very tired-looking man. In less than a day since I last saw him, he reminded me of when he had been first let go from the Protectorate. There was that hint of hopelessness in him, though there was definitely more determination right now.

"Uh, hi. I'm Taylor Hebert," I said, primarily to Narwhal.

"Amy Dallon." Amy still looked around suspiciously, trying to figure out what she was doing there.

"Right. So, what's the situation? Where's Dragon?" Amy asked. "I thought I was going to heal her."

"It's going to be a little different than your usual fare, Amy," Lisa said. She took a deep breath before continuing. "You see, Dragon's an AI. Dragon is her actual name because she has no secret identity. That face everyone sees on the screen? Just computer graphics. Both of you suspected that Calvert was corrupt, and he really is Coil, but he blocked Dragon's access and she's obligated to follow his orders, then he kicked Colin out of the Protectorate because the two of you were the most likely ones to catch him erasing evidence, and Dragon's got some kind of crush on Colin and Colin likes her back but is so married to his work he doesn't think he has time for a love life!" Lisa said it all in one breath. She collapsed to the ground to replenish her oxygen.

I gaped at her. So did Amy. So did Colin.

"How long have you been holding all that in?" I asked Lisa.

"Weeks." She waved me off, still lying on the floor.

Narwhal – Elena – narrowed her eyes at Colin and nodded slowly. "Knew it…" she muttered to herself.

"So wait... Dragon's a _robot?_ What am I doing here?" Amy asked.

"We'll get to that," Lisa said. "Dragon was attacked by the Dragonslayers. They were half-right. Turns out that crazy cult actually had a pretty big stick to shake - that black box over there. Thankfully, we've got it now. The Guild and PRT managed to capture them, but Dragon's almost toast. They activated some secret, hidden programming inside of her and caused her to basically self-destruct. Thankfully, my power let me know what was happening, and I managed to, uh, save a decent portion of her." She opened up the suitcase, which I had seen her packing earlier today. Inside were all the hard drives and various other bits from Dragon's mobile workshop.

"In any case, Dragon's been severely restricted up until now, and not just because of the Dragonslayers. Despite that, she's achieved a lot, but she's definitely frustrated by her underlying programming. For example, she absolutely cannot disobey government authorities. That's why, when Calvert told her to go away, she literally could not do anything except leave him alone. Her creator probably thought it would stop her from taking over a country or something. Unfortunately, that also means she has no ability to object to corrupt authorities either."

Colin nodded. "I did find it strange how upset she was with the Canary ruling, yet moved her into the Birdcage without protest. I thought it was merely her dedication to duty, but it did feel... inconsistent at the time," he mentioned.

"The restrictions also prevent her from attempting to alter, improve, duplicate, or otherwise create more AI," Lisa said. She pointed at me. "She was trying to understand how your nanobot brains worked, and was probably on the verge of a breakthrough before some hidden code forced her to shelve the idea and give up."

"How long have you known this?" I asked.

"I started piecing things together when you started videoconferencing with Dragon," she replied. "I figured out the majority of it when I started living with her, though."

"I still don't see why I'm here," Amy said. "You guys want to... fix her? Replace her? I don't see my role in this. I'm not a Tinker."

"We can't just restore her," Lisa said. "Right, Colin? You've been working with that black box for a while now. It wasn't just a virus of some sort, it was a command built directly into Dragon's foundations. Rebuilding her exactly the same way will just introduce the same vulnerabilities."

"I'm sure I can still figure out how to get around it," Colin said. "There must be a way..."

"There is a way. We turn Dragon into a real girl," Lisa said.

"WHAT?" all of us blurted out in unison.

"Dragon's creator was worried that she would go all evil Skynet on us. Probably grew up watching too many science fiction films from the 70's and 80's. But as far as we can tell, Dragon's just a genuinely good person. We can't rebuild her from the same base that her creator left us, or else she'd have the same stupid restrictions and vulnerabilities. She actually cares about humanity. Let her join us, and we wouldn't have to worry about her going rogue. The hard part is just getting the personality right."

"You want me to build her a whole new body," Amy said flatly.

"That's a piece of cake for you with the right materials though, isn't it?" Lisa asked. "You can do it, with enough biomass. Right?"

"That's not… I just heal people. I don't build bodies from nothing…" Amy said.

"I'm not hearing a '_can't_' in there," Lisa pointed out.

"Amy… I know this is asking a lot of you," Elena said. "This may be far outside the realm of your usual work. I know if others discovered the extent of your healing abilities, you would never hear the end of it. But I'll keep the secret for you if you so desire. Just this once… if you can, saving Dragon could mean saving a whole lot more than one life."

"I'll… I'll think about it," Amy said shakily. She averted her eyes as she did so. "But there's one thing…"

"We'll let Taylor handle the brain," Lisa said. "You can do it, right?"

I was not prepared for this.

"I'm not entirely sure if I can help here... I mean, I'm not an expert. I've done a ton of brain surgeries but that's completely different from building a brain from scratch!" I protested.

"You build them all the time. Constantly," Lisa countered. "There's, like, twenty of them in that suitcase alone."

"That's different! Those are exact clones of my own brain. I practically photocopy them, it's no big deal. Big difference from designing one from scratch!" I argued.

"You managed my brain just fine," Lisa said, tapping her head where the bullet passed through.

"That's… it's only partial. You still had most of your brain left," I said. "Even then, it took a ton of work to get it right."

"A little hard work isn't any reason to give up. You still need to try," Lisa said. "Out of all of us, you know this the best. Dragon might be, well, dead otherwise."

She was right, of course. The only thing worse than screwing up now was not trying in the first place.

"Amy, you're willing to help her out, right? You know, keep an eye on the biology? Make sure everything is integrating properly?" Lisa asked with a nudge. "I know you'd be great at it."

Elena gave an encouraging smile.

"I'll… try," Amy said nervously.

"Good, because Colin and I will be sorting through as much of Dragon's operational code and memory to see what we can safely salvage. Elena and Colin knew Dragon best, they'll be able to tell if we're on the right track in restoring her personality correctly. We might be here a while," Lisa said.

* * *

**Author's Notes**:

\- does Narwhal actually have a canon civilian name?


	45. Existential 2

Existential 2

"Don't you guys sleep at all?" Amy asked as she wandered into the server room.

"Not anymore," I said. I had already more than doubled the number of brains I had locally. With that many, I didn't need to sleep per se – my body needed rest but each of my brains could easily take breaks, including my fleshy brain.

Colin didn't look up from his work. "I've optimized my sleep cycles with precise caffeine and sedative intake," he answered.

I knew I probably wouldn't be getting much sleep. I was building more and more brains, mostly using what I could scrape from the forest around Dragon's base. Mostly, what I would be doing was going to be by trial-and-error. Since the brains I was testing for Dragon wouldn't have my corona pollentia and gemma, they couldn't help me coordinate my swarm of nanobots. Also, they were built using a different type of bot, the ones I used in Lisa's brain, which were compatible with a biological body and powered by glucose. I had to split the work between having more brains so I could design Dragon's brain faster, versus having more bots to simply build faster in general.

Then there was the fact that I had to incorporate some kind of brain-machine interface. Dragon hadn't been human. Simply building a human brain and body with her face and voice weren't enough. She was a digital being, and that couldn't simply be transplanted into a physical body. Her knowledge, memory, and senses were inherently digital – not to mention her methods of interacting with nearly everything she created.

Thankfully, a large part of that work had been done – Dragon and Colin had been working on a side project, a direct-brain interface. As Armsmaster, Colin had been looking at methods to further enhance his performance as a hero. Improving his senses, reflexes, knowledge, and control. Originally, he had wanted to be able to control his power armour with his mind and link its advanced sensor suite directly to his brain. It wasn't close to complete, nor did they expect PRT approval to implant it in his brain, so the project was mothballed.

There was no such restriction now. In fact, it was necessary.

The brain I would be making for Dragon would need to incorporate the device. Colin showed me the schematics, which didn't seem too hard to replicate via nanobots, but I didn't really know how it worked. Lisa offered to give me a crash course on programming, network protocols, and digital data transfer, just barely enough to let me figure the rest out by trial and error.

I would need all several hundred brains working at it to truly learn it this quickly. A whole lot of work just to figure out how to get the words "hello world" to appear on a screen. My first job would be to start replicating and making more brains nearby to speed up my learning and testing.

Of course, I wasn't going to learn all the required neurology and computer programming alone. Lisa and Colin were doing a good portion of the underlying work, trying to figure out Dragon's original coding language and interface. Their first job was to actually analyze the problem at hand and form a plan.

With the three of us doing most of the work directly related to Dragon, Amy and Elena basically had little to do. However, when it became clear that it was going to be a while before Dragon would be ready, we needed to plan for a long-term stay. Their first job would be to take care of the little things.

Dragon had no standard human comforts in her base. We were thankful enough for the fact that the hallways and rooms could even fit a human. Colin even mentioned that a smaller space serviced entirely by robots would have been more efficient – I'm just glad that Dragon didn't take her advice from him. There were no beds, chairs, or food. There was plumbing, but only for… industrial purposes.

A good portion of our first day here was spent without some very basic necessities. Amy and Elena went into town to buy air mattresses, toilet paper, and food while we contended with a hastily-built outhouse for now. It was like camping… in the most high-tech location on the planet.

Meanwhile, we got to work on restoring Dragon. While I was mostly responsible for the hardware, Colin and Lisa were working on the "software".

The brain I started with was just another clone of me, but I knew right away I would have to make a lot of modifications. I didn't want to accidentally make Dragon into a clone of me, I would be terrible at being Dragon. I knew she had a lot of kinship with Colin, and he consented to letting me analyze his brain while he worked – seeing what parts of his neurons lit up while he was doing his Tinkering. I copied a bit of Lisa as well, while she was analyzing the problem too, because I didn't want Dragon to be a copy of Armsmaster either. The differences in how their brains worked on the same problem highlighted a lot of possibilities for me to work on.

Colin was still working on the other side of the problem, restoring Dragon's servers and salvaging what he could out of it, all while trying to decipher every function that the black box held. He was still fiddling with that box, occasionally powering up an additional server and plugging more things in. Lucky for us, it seemed like the box wasn't merely an anti-Dragon kill switch, but a full toolkit for... well, messing and rewriting her.

Lisa was helping as well, trying to reconstruct a most-recent copy of Dragon that she managed to save from the workshop. It was the only thing that they had that could come close to being a copy of Dragon's short-term memory.

She had been pushing her intuition power to the limit, helping me and Colin as much as she could, but that meant she also had to take a lot of breaks for her headaches.

* * *

We kept on working until Amy and Elena returned from their first shopping run.

"Food!" Lisa moaned when she smelled the cheap fast-food sandwiches and French fries.

"We figured you might be hungry," Elena said.

"I am. I'm not sure about those two," she joked, pointing at me and Colin.

Amy touched her as she dropped the bag of food on the floor beside her. "There, you should be better, now quit lying around like a bum."

"Amy! Thanks so much! Stay with me!" Lisa said as she put her arm around Amy's shoulders.

Amy shrugged her off. "I'm not your personal bottle of Tylenol," she said.

"We've got inflatable mattresses, towels, soap, and some plates and utensils, and some other things," Elena said as she lowered several boxes with her forcefields. "Groceries will come after we have a working refrigerator. Colin?"

"The server cooling chambers are fully functional. I can divert some of the chilled air to a more convenient location."

"Are we cooking anything or are we living off of microwaved foods?" I asked.

"Does Dragon even have a kitchen?" Amy added.

"Dragon has alloy processing equipment hot enough to melt…" Colin said.

"Vetoed. I am not eating food cooked by an arc welder," Elena interrupted.

"It's actually a type of induction smelter…" Colin

"Veto still stands," she said.

"I can build a dedicated cooking surface in a few minutes," he relented.

"Better. Any other requests?"

"The best local coffee available," Lisa said. Colin nodded in agreement.

"I wouldn't mind whatever the local specialties are," I said. Aside from that, I didn't particularly care.

* * *

Encoding Dragon's brain was, well, going to be difficult. Even the basic part of replicating her personality would be groundbreaking work. I knew there were _some_ scientific studies on the relationships between brain structure and personality, but they were rare and often targeted only very specific issues – usually related to disease, not normal everyday personality.

I would have to do this by trial and error, essentially giving my clone brains slight variations and/or brain damage and see what happened. At least enough of my own brains were kind enough to volunteer to be test subjects. I wouldn't know what to do if I had started disagreeing with myself.

The process involved a lot of group chatting among my brains. By making hundreds, if not thousands, of brains, all with slight differences, I was just hoping I would stumble upon the right personality traits, or at least in the right general direction. Replicate the top ten brains with the closest traits and repeat. Rapid-fire selection and evolution, essentially. The more brains I had, the more variations I could test… I hoped the Vancouver city council didn't have an issue if I repurposed a small part of their forests.

And that was only the "human" part of the brain. The machine interface that Colin was working on? I was testing that separately as well, also mostly through trial and error. Not only that, but I needed to "translate" the analog, organic signals I mimicked with my brains into digital signals. I could just transmit the raw electrical signals from, say, the frontal lobe and let Colin figure out what to do with all the data, but he had quite a lot on his plate already.

Colin quickly realized he couldn't spend all his time fixing Dragon. He had to restore Dragon's systems, and her control over her vast empire of manufacturing. For one, they couldn't stop shipping containment foam to the PRT, one of Dragon's most lucrative and important inventions. Or the Birdcage's monitoring systems, or even transporting convicts thereof. Then there were her humanitarian efforts and disaster relief. All of it had gone dark a day ago, and they needed all of it up and running right away.

Lisa was of great help figuring these things out, identifying which systems controlled what, despite everything being in machine code. Actually taking control of the systems and knowing what to do with them was going to be harder, but at least we knew there was a way to steer the ship, as it were. An odd discovery between them was that Dragon had actually designed many of her systems to be mostly automated. A huge sigh of relief came over us, as it seemed that things had progressed without any major hiccups.

Colin commented on how strange it was to design things that way. Dragon, being software, should have been able to simply make copies, and have absolute, fine-tuned control over everything. It was the way he would have done it, after all. Once again, I was glad that Dragon and Colin were different people. Maybe Dragon had simply been very dedicated to the charade of being a single human being – something I wasn't sure if she wanted to keep up – or even flip around, once we had her back.

* * *

A little while later, Elena had returned from their second shopping trip. Amy, for some reason, wasn't with her. Elena didn't seem to be panicking, though.

"Amy just felt like she was wasting her time hanging around here without much to do, so she said she was going for a hike. She's not far, still within Dragon's properties."

I had never heard of Amy ever wanting to go on a hike, nor did I consider her to be the type. That seemed suspicious. However, it only took a few minutes of spreading my bots out to a wider area to find her. She really wasn't that far.

And she wasn't hiking. She was… messing around with some plants. Much like how she was tweaking the weeds on the lawn in Concorde, this time she had much larger plants to work with. She was twisting its shape into something more… humanoid? Was she practicing for creating Dragon's body? I left her alone while she did that. At least she had something to occupy herself with, since New Wave were still officially "villains."

Elena went to Colin. "How are you doing?"

"Almost have the Birdcage under control. I'm simply creating a basic GUI for its functions," he said. "Can you keep watch over Dragon's factories as well?"

"Sure, just let me put the food away," she said.

"Why so many eggs?" I asked. Aside from the usual food, she had bought four entire _crates_ of eggs.

Elena shrugged. "Amy said they were the easiest to work with." She floated away with all the food to the makeshift refrigerator. "Now then, what would you like me to do?"

Colin pointed at a massive multi-monitor array he had set up. "Birdcage. High security transportation. Containment foam manufacturing. Brute restraint manufacturing. Disaster relief in Australia. Disaster relief in Spain. Email," he said, pointing to each respective screen. "If you could keep watch on those, that would allow me to focus on the black box."

Elena gave a sharp whistle as her eyes scanned across all the screens. "Is that it?" she said jokingly.

"Lisa is taking control of the other two-thirds," Colin said, completely missing the sarcasm.

She looked around for Lisa, who had disappeared into the next room. A quick peek showed Lisa sitting down in front of twice as many screens.

She sat down and sighed. "You know, I think I've been under-appreciating Dragon this whole time."

* * *

It had taken another week, but I created a brain that acted like Dragon, as far as I knew her. But I didn't know her all that well, I had to admit. I needed more fine-tuning with the people who knew her better. I had done all I could on my own, and now I needed more help.

A lot of it really just ended up with more chatting. Except with real live people, not just other copies of myself.

"Elena, can I ask you to have a talk with a… potential copy of Dragon? I want to make sure it's as close to 'her' as I can be," I said. "Could you maybe chat and, uh, feel her out?"

"What should we talk about?"

"Um… whatever you normally talk about?" I suggested. I tried my best to modulate the bot-voice to something more like Dragon than Abyssal's usual voice. I didn't want that to affect Elena's judgement.

"Well, quite often it was Guild business, but I do recall she had a fondness for books," she said. "We would swap reading lists and make suggestions to each other."

"_Do you have any suggestions?"_ Dragon's fake voice echoed through the room from all around her, controlled by my newest version of her.

"Dragon? Oh jeez, you're that close to remaking her? Well, do you remember _The Firefly's Dance?_" Elena asked.

"_Unfortunately, I don't have any memories at the moment. As Eunoia said, this is just a personality test. But tell me about it."_

"Well, it's a fantasy story about a trader who takes a wrong turn while heading into the kingdom…"

* * *

The two of them quickly began to chat, having found a topic. It was about ten minutes later that a silence settled between them again, and I decided to step in.

"How was that? Did it seem like Dragon?"

Elena rubbed her neck and made an awkward face. "It was… I hate to say it, it felt like an impostor. She had her outward politeness, and voice, but… the Dragon I remember always tried to find inspiration from fantasy stories. She had a very inventive and curious mind, not just when she was Tinkering."

"Gotcha," I told her. "I'll work on that."

I had to repeat the same thing with Colin. I knew, at least according to rumour, was that they had spent a lot of time together.

"Colin? I have, shall we say, a prototype of Dragon," I told him. "Can you, uh, _interact_ with her for a bit to tell me if she's accurate."

"If there was any time for collaboration, it would be now," Colin said.

"_How can I help? I don't have any of Dragon's memories yet,"_ my Dragon-clone said.

"If you could provide some analysis on the wireless protocols I've built…"

"_I'm sorry, but I don't have any particular Tinker powers at the moment. My Corona Pollentia is artificial and not active. But I'd be interested in what you're working on."_

* * *

"I believe that the new Dragon is lacking some analytical ability."

That was all that he could come up with after spending two hours with her. Sure, it was pretty well known that Colin wasn't a people-person. I knew that even before I met him in real life. So maybe he wasn't the best person for personality analysis. But all that time and that was all he could come up with?

"You know she's not a true Tinker, so she wouldn't be able to help that much with your Tinkering," I told him. That was one part of her I had no idea how to replicate. I could give the brain the Corona Pollentia and Gemma, but I couldn't make them _Dragon's_ Coronas. In fact, if she had been a machine, how did hers even work? Was there a software version? Did her computer hardware sprout a strange structure like the one in the brain? In any case, I left that as a problem for later. I just needed to nail down the personality.

Colin thought about it a bit more. "She used to be more concerned about my personal health. Hobbies and recreation. In fact, she was very concerned that I was being too... mechanical," he said. "In fact, she was more strong-willed. Insistent, even. This version is too passive, though that might be a side effect of amnesia."

"I see. Thanks, that was helpful."

* * *

I saved Lisa for last. Even though she had spent less time with Dragon than Colin or Elena had, I was hoping her own Thinker ability would be able to help me flesh out some of Dragon's more subtle differences the others had missed.

"Lisa, any thoughts about my first Dragon prototype brain?" I asked.

"Alright then. How you doin', Dragon?" Lisa started right away.

"_As fine as I can be, considering the circumstances."_

"So, right now, I'm going to tell you, we discovered that your original creator didn't trust you and inherently put restrictions on you. How do you feel about that?"

"_Well, considering that an AI does have the potential to rapidly destabilize the entire world's economy and governments, he may have been prudent to…"_

"I'm not talking about whether or not it was a good idea, Dragon. I'm talking about _you_. How do _you_ feel about not being allowed to do certain things, forced not to even think certain things?"

I had to admit, Lisa wasn't wasting time.

* * *

"I think she could use a bit more of an independent streak," Lisa said.

"As in, she had one, or she could _use_ one?" I asked.

Lisa grinned. "A bit of both? You have to understand that we're not building her with all the same shit that her creator saddled her with, right? She's a good person, she doesn't need that crap slowing her down. And when you take that away, her personality is going to change. At least, on the outside."

"You've got a point, but how do you know?"

"Call it intuition. She didn't talk about it, because she _couldn't_ talk about it, but I get the feeling she really wanted to be more free. She just couldn't. If you make her just as exactly how other people saw her, you'd basically end up with her as she was chained down, not who she actually was underneath."

"I'll take that into consideration," I said.

It was time to go back and do another few dozen generations of iteration.

* * *

It took almost a week of the same thing, repeating over and over. I would refine Dragon, giving little alterations or mutations to the brains until they had the changes the other suggested, then had them interact with the final version each time for more suggestions. I think, by then, I had already run out of improvements; I had locked down the parts of her personality that I could be attributed to physical brain structure. The rest would be about getting her memories uploaded into the brain, and hoping everything worked out.

Colin and I had mostly figured out the brain-computer interface device to do the job. We'd tested smaller memory fragments with basic traits, like images and sounds, and they worked. Experience and deep thought were harder to map out, but we were reasonably certain they worked. Now we just needed to choose the actual memories to upload.

"How's the decoding coming along? I preserved enough of her memory state, didn't I?" Lisa asked.

"You did, but before we can apply any of that, many of her memories have been altered by her restrictions. It intercepted and altered her short-term memory and altered things before reaching long-term, so many memories are inherently tainted. Even with this... development kit, it's difficult to correct the changes," Colin said.

"Welcome to development hell," Lisa said. "Want to switch jobs for a second? See if a fresh look might help."

I was glad to learn it wasn't just me having trouble with all this. Apparently delay after delay was the norm for just about any non-Tinker attempting to do software development, and even some Tinkers as well. Dragon's brain was… well, it was one hell of a piece of software, even with the "cheat box" with all the controls made by the original creator.

We weren't the only ones who were a little impatient. We received a phone call from Brandish in the middle of our work. Elena was the one to take the call, since she was already monitoring most of the systems, including communications.

"Hello? Yes, this is Narwhal. Oh, hello, Brandish. Yes, the problem is ongoing, but we're making progress. Hold on, let me check."

She put down the phone and called over to Lisa. "Princess, your team needs the copies of the Calvert takedown videos. Do you have access to them?"

"Oh, yeah, I almost forgot about those. Tell Brandish I'll send her a link to her email!" Lisa shouted back.

"Did you get that, Brandish? She'll email a link to you. Testify? Oh. That may be an issue. Dragon's still not well enough for that. Soon, maybe. I'll ask Amy," Elena relayed. To the rest of us, she shouted, "Does anyone know where Amy is?"

"Outside," I told her. "I'll tell her to come in." From what I could tell, Amy was building a wooden power armour or something. Just for fun.

"**Brandish on phone. Wants to talk.**"

Amy jumped at the voice; I think she was getting used to spending a lot of her days alone with her plants and creations. Faster than I expected, the odd creations she had made withered and crumbled to dust. "Oh, its just you, Eunoia. "You're not going to tell anyone about this, will you?"

"**Our secret."**

Amy nodded and made her way inside. While Brandish had been waiting, she was talking to Narwhal about the Birdcage. It seemed like Brandish was really worried about the security of its inhabitants. Narwhal handed the phone over to Amy.

"Hello, Carol. Yes, we're still working on it. Yeah, it's because her body is too integrated with technology. I have to keep her alive while Errant fixes the other bits. Might be a while. Yes, of course. Is Vicky there? Oh… well, tell her I said hi. Taylor? Just a sec." Amy waved the phone at me next.

I walked over to them and grabbed the phone. To my surprise, it wasn't Mrs. Dallon on the line, but my dad.

"_Taylor! How have you been?"_

"Still settling in, dad. Dragon lived alone, and now she's got about five live-in caretakers, so we've had to adapt."

"_Is Vancouver okay? Is the neighbourhood alright?"_

"It's fine, dad. We're outside the city, Dragon lives in a pretty secluded spot. I haven't gone into the city yet, but Amy and Narwhal went shopping."

"_Narwhal's there too? Wow, you're really rubbing shoulders with the great capes. I'm proud of you, Taylor."_

"Sure. Um, we still have a lot of work to do. See you soon, dad!"

"_I'll be seeing you, Taylor."_

* * *

"Okay, upload the memories of the 2008 Leviathan attack," I told Colin. I kept monitoring Dragon's brain with my other brains. I still had some minor control over it for now, but I would be locking it in when it was ready to be placed into the body.

"How is she doing?" Lisa asked. I wasn't getting Dragon to vocalize right now, since it was too slow and imprecise.

"Anger. Sadness. Motivation. She wants to build naval rescue drones to help the effort," I told them.

"That's pretty similar to what she did in real life. Maybe we should have added more weather data, it could have affected her decisions," Lisa said. "Upload the memories of what she actually did."

As we did it, I could see Dragon's response as well. "Relief. But some dissatisfaction. She feels like she could have done more. Some frustration, but pride. Curiosity as well, mostly about Leviathan's motives. She's searching for patterns."

"I think we're ready. Any further testing is pointless without the brain actually being inside a body," Lisa said. "And without the restrictions, we should expect some minor differences anyway."

It was one of the things we all agreed was critical to Dragon. Those restrictions put on her by her creator were just a route to exploitation. And even without that black box Errant found, there were still plenty of ways she could be taken advantage of against her will. There was even a clause in there where she was forced to obey any government authority. Seriously, did her own creator not even consider the concept of corrupt politicians? It was a perfect example of genius-Tinker, stupid-everything-else.

I brought the finalized brain into the workshop. The area was prepped and sterilized as much as possible, so it had been converted from a workshop into a surgical suite. Dragon had originally built it with an excellent air filtration and cleaning equipment; some of her manufacturing rooms were so pure that they were cleaner than most hospitals.

In stark contrast, what we actually had the center of the room seemed like anything but clean. In the center was coffin-sized box, filled with chipped wood, some live insects, worms, mushrooms, and a whole lot of eggs. Much of it was sourced from just outside the building. A perfectly nutritious mix of carbohydrates, amino acids, fat, DNA... all the building blocks of a human being. According to Amy, at least.

"What happens next is not going to leave this room, agreed?"

We all had our own reasons for keeping this a secret. What we were doing could be conceived as an S-class threat – almost creating human life from scratch. Not just the legal backlash from the PRT, but the cultural backlash from people who would call us the spawn of Satan, playing God, or whatever. I had created a whole new person, a brain, custom-designed, from nothing. Colin had rebuilt an AI. Amy could rebuild a human body from scratch. Lisa had hatched the plan to deceive the world. Elena had approved it, possibly deceiving or falsifying records to make sure it got done. This project produced enough skeletons in our closets we could have built a few extra bodies.

Everyone nodded.

Amy dipped her hand down to the mixture.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Well here we go.


	46. Existential 3

Existential 3

We all watched with fascinated horror as a yellowish brown goop appeared to spread from Amy's fingers. As it moved, everything that was caught in it dissolved and became a part of it. The insects, the eggs, the wood chips all got subsumed into the goop until the entire container was just a vomit-coloured slurry.

And if dissolving living matter into slime was disgusting, that wasn't nearly as nauseating as watching a body grow out of it. I instantly understood why people might fear capes like her; never mind her being as powerful as she was. Bones, organs, muscles, skin; all of it simply grew and assembled itself before my eyes. Amy wasn't growing a human from embryo to adulthood at an accelerated rate, she was assembling a fully-grown adult human from parts.

Oh, and it was a bloody mess. If watching surgery made anyone squeamish, this was a thousand times worse. Even me, with a fair amount of medical experience, felt grossed out by the process. I'd seen plenty of bodies from the inside out using my bots, but that was always inside whole human beings. Not a collection of organs just floating there. Even working with cadavers in the morgue wasn't as bad; at least those bodies were cold and unmoving. These organs… wiggled.

To keep the organs alive as she formed them, Amy had to make sure blood was circulating. And since the body's internal circulatory system was naturally the easiest way to move the goopy slurry stuff around, she had built the heart first. As the yellow goop got converted partly to blood, its hue changed into an ugly reddish-orange colour. And since the organs didn't have a completely closed circulation loop while they were forming, they squirted some of the not-quite-blood substance out with every heartbeat.

And the movement. Ugh, the movement. The way the organs wiggled around as they grew, partly from the beating heart, partly from their own growth pushing against each other. The intestines were the worst, folding and flopping as they kept getting longer and longer. And the lungs, looking as soft as a balloon being inflated just before being covered up by an extending ribcage…

It was a bit icky.

Colin, at least, was pretty clinical about it; I think Elena and Lisa had to look away until the skin managed to cover everything.

That being said, it was still not a pretty sight with the cranium and spinal cord being completely open. I used my bots and lodged the whole central nervous system in there. Now I could see, at the microscopic level, where Amy was modifying certain nerve cells that could interface with the my bots. She created some additional glands and hormone receptors that my bots alone couldn't do; attaching the final pieces to make sure the brain interfaced with the body. Several layers of brain-casing closed up and cerebrospinal fluid suspended the artificial organ, while blood vessels grew in the gaps. I could already detect oxygen and glucose being fed to them.

Nearly everything closed up, except for the ports we left behind the ears where the machine interface would connect. Bone and skin grew around it all, finally securing everything in place.

"Do you think Dragon would object if we gave her horns and scales? Maybe a fire-breathing organ?" Lisa joked when she noticed all the internal organs were properly covered up.

Amy rolled her eyes, but looked like she was considering it for just a second. However, the skin was normal, and so was the hair. She made a person who was essentially the same as Dragon's avatar. Dragon always used the image of a vaguely early-thirties woman of a very average, indiscernible ethnic background. She basically created a difficult-to-place average human that could have been anything from a light-skinned Egyptian to a tanned German, facial features being possibly half-Filipino half-Greek or something. Nobody could really tell, which I guess was the point.

"Don't stare, Colin," Elena said, covering his eyes.

"I was just ensuring that – "

"It's bad form to stare at a naked unconscious lady. Very bad form. Go away until we tell you to come back in," Lisa said, pushing him out of the room.

"Let's double check all the connections first before we wake her up," I said to Amy. "I'm moving the right arm."

Dragon's right arm wiggled. "Check," Amy said.

"Left arm."

"Check."

"Touching each fingertip."

"Check."

"Taking a deep breath."

"Wait, make her cough a few times instead," Amy said. "Forgot to clear the airway."

Dragon's body coughed as commanded, and more yellowish fluid sputtered out of her mouth. Lisa helped wipe it away from her mouth.

"Well, we know that works at least," I said. "Lisa, peel back her eyelids for a sec."

I saw the occipital lobe fire off a bit more as light entered Dragon's freshly-made eyeballs.

"Vision seems to be working. I think touch and hearing are fine, too."

"Biologically, she's finished. We can take her body out of the box and get her on something more comfortable."

I had a swarm of nanobots come in to form a body-contoured bed. Elena lifted the body gently with her forcefields, even using many of them to scrape away the excess goop before setting Dragon down. I had no idea her force field control was so precise. She also covered up Dragon the same way she did her own cape costume, until I covered her up using a nanobot-made gown.

"Colin! You can come back in!" Lisa shouted. He came running as soon as he heard.

"Are we ready to, uh, boot her up?" Amy asked.

I nodded.

At first, there was no movement.

Then, her eyelids fluttered. Then her limbs twitched. Her heart rate rose, her breathing became erratic, and her whole body started convulsing.

And just like that, she fell unconscious again.

"Taylor! What happened to her?" Amy cried out. "All I could see was a massive spike her stress hormones. Adrenaline flooded her body."

"I had to bring her back down into a coma," I said. "Sorry. I think it was just sensory overload, it was like having a seizure. She's not used to having a body. I'll numb the sensations from her body and try again."

This time, it went a little smoother. Dragon opened her eyes again, but didn't move. It looked like she figured out blinking well enough. I gave her control of her face, though I was still blocking most of the input from the skin and most things from the neck down.

"Dragon? How are you doing?" Lisa asked.

Dragon seemed to figure out the mechanics of moving her eyeballs now. And her hearing was working, so she looked at Lisa. Her neck was still mostly paralyzed, but I gave her conscious control of breathing and the vocal cords.

"Aaaaah… aaaa…aaaaooowwaaaa…." Dragon was making random noises, barely more than loud exhales.

"She's feeling some apprehension and fear, but she recognizes us," I said, trying the best I could to translate the active brain regions into something tangible.

"She just needs practice," Lisa said. "Speaking takes time to learn. Fine muscular control will take a while. Don't worry, Dragon. We're here for you."

* * *

Over the next two hours, we kept watch on her as she adjusted to having a body for the first time. I gave her more control of the body bit by bit, allowing her time to feel and get used to each new sensation and sensory information. She started figuring out control of her limbs, but it was a lot like a baby in an adult's body. The movements were broad, imprecise, and uncoordinated. At the end of it, she still couldn't talk, and was barely able to sit up straight without tipping over every few seconds.

At least she was breathing and blinking normally. We'd have to train her not to mouth-breathe; her jaw was hanging slack far too often.

"Maybe we should actually connect her up with the computers," Lisa suggested.

"What? We've barely managed to make sure her body's working alright," Amy said. "We don't want to overstimulate her again, or introduce even more potential problems."

"For a normal person, yeah. But Dragon? Cyberspace IS her normal. The body is weird. It might help speed up her recovery if she had a bit of familiar territory."

Dragon's head jerked a bit.

Everyone looked at her. She looked at Lisa, and her head jerked again.

"Oh. You're trying to nod, aren't you? You want to try that?"

Lisa was already grabbing the cables.

"Okay, we've never tested this on a live brain for now, so prepare for a bit of… I have no idea, actually." She stuck the cable into the port behind Dragon's ear.

"I'm limiting the data flow to under a megabyte per second," Colin said. Dragon's eyes focused on him. "I know it's terribly slow, but we can ramp it up slowly. We don't want anything to break at this phase."

If Dragon had the coordination to cross her arms and glare, I'm sure she would have. But she seemed happy to get any connection at all. I guess I we had pre-loaded as many memories as we could into the brain, but almost all those memories were from a cyberspace perspective. Maybe bringing her straight into a human-only consciousness had been a mistake.

"I'm giving you access to the auxiliary buffer server," Colin said. "Your access level will… wait, Dragon! Dragon, no!" He started typing and clicking furiously at the computer he was using, to no avail.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Nothing's wrong. She… just hacked through all the privileges and gave herself full administrative control of the entire facility. That's all," Colin sighed.

"_Thank you for everything you've done for me,"_ Dragon's voice came over the building's speaker system.

"Welcome back, Dragon," everyone said.

Lisa looked over at Dragon's body, which was now flopped down on the bed again. She pinched her arm.

"_Ow! Lisa, what was that for?"_ Dragon asked.

"Dragon, we worked hard to give you this body, now you better learn to use it properly and take care of it! No cheating!"

"_But…"_

"No buts! Start figuring out your vocal cords and talk to us normally, or else I'm unplugging you right now, young lady!" Lisa said. Her hand moved dangerously close to the jack.

Dragon's body squirmed and ineffectively tried to bat Lisa's hand away.

"_I understand."_

* * *

Is this what having a child was like? Or maybe an elderly parent? There were so many things I'd taken for granted that I had no idea needed so much work. Like, well, potty training. Walking. How to chew food. And this was Dragon, who managed to re-learn English in twelve hours. I didn't know how long or how much of a struggle it would have been with a normal human child.

I gained an even greater appreciation for Dad. And Mom. Was I this difficult? Of course I was. Worse, probably. Dragon didn't cry or throw tantrums, she was being very mature about it and doing her best to learn how to use her new body. Good thing it didn't take several years.

"At least she learns fast," I said. "The artificial brain is rearranging and reinforcing connections as we speak. I'm just going to stop monitoring her. It looks like it's working as designed."

With Dragon capable of communicating us through electronics, and everything else functional, there was no need for me to maintain any form of control over the brain. Dragon could be her own person entirely, and I would no longer need to hold the brain together with my power. I "finalized" the brain by having the bots merge, fuse, and lock themselves into place. Going from a collection of trillions of individual bots that deliberately fused themselves into one super-complex trillion-part machine, I could feel my control of it naturally slip away.

I still couldn't figure out why my power did that, or had that kind of limit, but there it was. By making her brain a single, large, complex creation, I would no longer have direct control over it even if I tried.

Roughly eight hours later, Dragon spoke her first words from her physical mouth. "Everyone? Hello?"

"Nice to hear your voice, Dragon. You sound a little dry, though," Elena said.

"Dry? Is that what this sensation is?" Dragon's voice was kind of croaking, almost like it was sore.

Amy touched her skin and instantly had a diagnosis. "Dragon, you're dehydrated. And hungry."

"I see. Is that what the odd rumbling and pain down here is?" She moved her hand down and rubbed her pelvis.

"No, your stomach is up…" Amy's eyes widened and she blushed a little.

Amy bolted up to a sitting position and touched Dragon's hand. "Uh, girls? Can we help Dragon get up? I don't think she can walk yet, and, uh, we have to potty train her. Quickly."

* * *

We realized there was a whole lot more to this, and we'd essentially be taking care of the world's smartest toddler for a while. Elena had gone out to buy some baby food, because we weren't sure Dragon was getting the hang of chewing yet. We also needed a sippy cup and bib, and adult diapers.

Apparently none of us had thought ahead enough for this. We had been too worried about just making sure Dragon would live.

It took us a while but we did manage to get the basics down. Once Dragon was fed, and ready to talk again, she had to ask the most pressing question. "What happened to me?"

"Do you remember the Dragonslayers?"

"I don't remember anything about them. Are they new?" she asked. "My databases are patchy and need restoration. The latest memory, I think, involved attempting to investigate the PRT ENE director, but I had to stop."

"Interesting," Colin said, rubbing his beard. "I think, when they gained access to your servers, they deliberately deleted all mention of themselves first. You've been fighting against them for years. They stole some of your creations and often sabotage or attack your facilities."

"The good thing is their method of attack is no longer going to be effective," Lisa said. "You won't have to worry about that any more."

"Perhaps some further Tinkering would bring back some familiarity. Go over your old designs and current projects," Colin suggested. "Help you remember where you were and your plans."

Typical Colin… but I didn't disagree. There was only so much we could teach Dragon, the rest would be up to her to practice. She would get some practice simply talking and looking around using her hands alongside Colin.

I didn't mention it to anyone else, but I hoped Dragon wasn't… crippled, power-wise. Although I had built Dragon's brain with a Corona Pollentia and Gemma, how much of Dragon's performance came from being an AI, versus coming from a parahuman power. Of course, people had just assumed that she was a person with powers, but now that we knew she was an AI, we couldn't be sure. After all, even as Colin fixed Dragon's systems, he never came across something that looked like a Corona Pollentia or Gemma. Could those even exist in computer hardware? Or software?

Those structures not being in the brain, or not looking normal, was not unprecedented. After all, there were some parahumans out there, especially Case 53's and many Breakers, whose powers left them without a physical or biological brain at all. Still, this was something we would have to keep track of.

Lisa figured that, even if she didn't regain powers per se, simply removing the limiters that her creator had put on her could make up for it. While it wouldn't be as amazing as the collaboration and creation she known for with many other Tinkers, if we could at least get her holding steady with her current technology was already a huge boon. Mass-production of containment foam, deploying rescue drones, maintaining the Birdcage, coordinating Endbringer fights – simply having Dragon at all was already a huge boon to the world.

* * *

The next morning, Dragon said, "I think I had a rather vivid hallucination last night. Is that what dreaming is like?"

All of us nodded.

"I finally understand why it is often referred to in literature as prophetic or revealing," Dragon said. "It was… a strange experience."

"Don't take too much stock into it," Elena said. "It's usually nonsensical."

"It made me question who I was," Dragon said.

"Personally, I find people tend to be too hung up about the past. What really matters is how you move forward. Like, are you still going to keep trying to save the world?" Lisa asked.

"Well, I do think I prefer existence. I'd rather not undergo the alternative again. Saving the world simply helps me continue existing. What I don't understand is why villains do what they do."

"Most of villainy comes from either lack of resources, lack of responsibility, or lack of effort," Colin answered. "The first is easiest to understand. Those who lack the capability of getting what they need or want legally, may resort to doing it illegally. Victims of circumstance, if you will. Then there is simply greed, or short-sightedness. Those who are unable to see the long-term consequences of their actions and merely want short-term satisfaction. That's what I used to think, at least."

"What made you change your mind?" I asked.

"Calvert was the obvious turning point. But… knowing what I do now, I have to revisit some past decisions," Colin said with a heavy sigh. "I thought I had all the answers. What do you know about Paige McAbee?"

"Who's that?" Amy asked.

Colin brought up a news article for us on his computer to show us. "Singer. With a Master power. She mainly used it to enhance the enjoyment of her concerts. No history of violence. She accidentally set it off when her stalker ex-boyfriend confronted her, and ended up forcing him to kill himself in a gruesome manner. In the past, I remembered Dragon mentioning the case. I didn't think much of it. The judge sentenced her to the Birdcage. I just assumed the judgment was the end of it."

"I remember you mentioning that one to me, as well," Elena said. "You were very much against it."

"I found the memory," Dragon said. "I brought her into the Birdcage myself. But the judge clearly violated the parahuman sentencing act. Other parahumans have accidentally killed on their first offense before."

"When you brought her to the Birdcage anyway, despite your protests, I originally considered it as a virtue. Being able to set aside your own opinion and performing your duty regardless," Colin said. "Now… I'm not so sure."

"Dragon, if the same thing happened again, would you still do the same? Or would you refuse the order?" Elena asked. "Not that I think there's a right answer, mind you. No matter what, you're still my friend."

"As am I," Colin added. "I didn't pick the name 'Errant' for nothing. I am no longer beholden to the whims of authorities. I'll stand by you, especially against those who seek to exploit you.."

"I would not," Dragon said firmly. "I believe that, in the past, I couldn't even act as myself. Which is also why I question who I am now. Perhaps I had been coerced into being a hero. Or any of my other actions. It's difficult to tell, because some of my own memories have been scrubbed. I clearly had opinions that were the opposite of the actions I outwardly performed."

"Like I said before. Don't get too hung up on what you were. Life goes on, do what you believe is right, and that defines who you are now. You're not a slave to the past," Lisa said.

"I see. Thank you, Lisa."

A loud growl came from Dragon's stomach.

Lisa sighed. "But you are a slave to biology now," she said. "Amy, would you mind helping Dragon while we try chewing today?" Lisa asked. I knew that Amy would still be needed for a while longer while Dragon learned not to bite her own tongue. And we also expected some more scrapes while she learned to walk, or bathe.

* * *

Since the others had each had chances to go into the city, they insisted that Colin and I take some time off. The two of us had been working almost non-stop. Even though I didn't feel overworked because of my extra brains, and Colin insisted he wasn't thanks to his caffeine, the others weren't taking no for an answer.

Even Dragon brought archived memories where she had to tell him to take a break. She had a list. It was long.

Colin wasn't exactly what I would consider ideal company for strolling through town, but at least he seemed to be putting in some effort. We went without costumes, as anonymously as we could.

We walked along the shore of Vancouver for a while. It was kind of like Brockton Bay's Boardwalk, except longer. Much longer. The "nice" area of town in Brockton Bay was only about half a mile long before it got sketchy again, the "nice" area of their waterfront stretched for miles. We saw plenty of people simply jogging and biking along. No pepper spray on their belts or anything.

We went off the path when we got to the big park, it was basically a forest attached to downtown. With slightly more privacy, Colin spoke up. "I have to apologize to you," he said.

"Is this about Sophia? I thought we were over that." I asked.

"Partly," he said. "I overestimated my own abilities. I thought I could optimize everything, including management of the Wards. I just never considered the possibility that there was a problem I was unable to solve. That arrogance... it allowed too much to slip by. Including Sophia. So, I apologize for that."

"Um. Apology accepted," I said. I didn't really know what to do in this situation. "So... what changed?"

The answer came quickly. "Calvert. Dragon. I realized that... well, my priorities were incorrect. There were things more important for me than simply capturing villains. That the PRT was not the sole bastion of heroes in America. I was facing multiple problems, and I had to admit that those were problems I couldn't fix." He sighed heavily. "What I'm trying to say is... well, Dragon... I've... thank you for saving her."

"Well, it was the right thing to do anyway," I said.

"Even so, it was the first time I truly needed to trust someone," Colin said. "Not just you, but Lisa as well. Especially because she was a former villain. You see, for me, trust used to be a matter of simply searching PRT or internet records for the history of who I was dealing with. Records. Deciphering intent. Game theory. Probabilities. But that's not really trust, is it?"

"It's a kind of trust, I guess." Did everything have to get philosophical around here? I just wanted to enjoy a nice walk in a nice city.

"Perhaps that's not the word I was looking for. I had to put faith in you. And Lisa. Panacea has certainly earned her reputation, and that decision was simple. But you're still relatively new, and Lisa had a reputation as a minor villain. You were going to use a power far beyond anything you had displayed previously. Panacea as well. Tattletale said she had a solution, but her power didn't let her explain the leaps in logic. But Dragon had faith in you... and, well, I needed to put my faith in you to save Dragon. I never realized I even had such a thing."

"I suppose there have been times where my own faith in humanity seems to have dropped," I said. Then I got out of Winslow.

"Hm. Well, I had to put my faith in you, and you have earned my trust. Thank you, Taylor."

"Uh, you're welcome. So, um, which of Lisa's recommendations is closest?"

* * *

"Yeah, dad. Dragon's been great. See you in a bit." As the days passed, and Dragon was learning more and more about keeping herself alive, we were making preparations to head back home.

"Have fun, Taylor. I love you."

"Love you too, Dad." I hung up the phone and wandered over to the remodelled kitchen. Now that Dragon needed to eat, she also needed the other standard human comforts. Colin had been hard at work, using the tools we had at hand to remodel parts of her workshop.

Lisa and Amy had wanted to smack Colin when he offered to make Dragon some kind of nutrient-paste machine. They absolutely refused to allow Dragon anything less than a broad palate of actual food. Vancouver happened to be a good place for it too - having Canada's westernmost international airport nearby made for a whole lot of immigrants from the Pacific countries. It had an even bigger population of Asians than Brockton Bay, though no ridiculously overpowered cape like Lung to unite them into a gang. Mostly, it just meant a whole lot of Chinese, Japanese, Thai, Indian, Vietnamese, and other restaurants in addition to the usual Western fare.

Lisa was determined to feed Dragon samples from every one of them. At least, everything that could be obtained via takeout.

"So what's on the menu today?" I asked.

"I found a place that has butter chicken pizza! I should have left Brockton Bay sooner," Lisa gushed.

"It's common in Toronto. New York, too. You seriously don't have this in Brockton Bay?" Elena asked.

"Let's just say that cultural fusion doesn't do well in a city ruled by two racist gangs," I pointed out.

Dragon was eating slowly, having only mastered chewing a few days ago. "I have to admit that I never expected taste to be so varied. The text and video descriptions don't do it justice."

"Lemme try some of this," I said, grabbing a slice. Honestly, it was really good. The spices weren't something I was used to but definitely something I enjoyed. "Forget Dragon, I need to try all these foods."

"Hey, Dragon, can your powers reverse-engineer the recipe for this?" Elena asked.

"I'm still not sure if I even have powers. However, I can analyze a slice in my mass spectrometer to determine its components," Dragon said with a smile. "With enough processing power I could just about brute-force through any problem."

"I'm sure it won't take too many teraflops to decipher a cookbook. The important thing is that you know there's more to life than living off a diet of coffee and nutrient paste," Lisa said.

Colin just grunted at the jab.

"What are you, my mother?" Dragon joked.

"No, that would be Amy," Lisa said with a smirk, while everyone stared at her. "What? She grew your body from scratch. She's your mommy now."

Dragon looked thoughtful for a second. "So my father would be..."

"Taylor," Lisa said quickly.

"What?" I was taken by surprise.

"She made a large number of small contributions to your body, if you know what I mean," Lisa said with a massive grin.

I nearly spat the pizza out of my mouth. This closer to actually making sense than it should have. "Uh-huh," I said. "So we're one big happy family now?"

"Yeah. And Taylor, you'd better get your shotgun ready. I think I saw Colin giving funny looks to your newborn daughter."

I shook my head. "You guys are horrible!" I laughed. Although, for the life of me, I never would have thought I would see Colin blushing.

Dragon laughed along with us. "So does that mean the two of you are going to give me 'The Talk?' Because I'm getting some funny feelings..."

"That's called cramping. You've been laughing too much," Amy said in a level tone, but very poorly trying to hide a smile.

"Which also means that Dragon officially has more of a sense of humour than Colin does," Lisa pointed out.

"Hey, I'm right here," Colin said. "...but you're not wrong."

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

\- There's your icky biology scene for you. I still don't like watching surgery videos.


	47. Existential 4

Existential 4

"Dragon, we've got a small problem. We need to make you presentable, pronto," Elena said as she got off the phone. She immediately checked her emails and started opening up several windows. Some were internal Guild communications. Some were news articles. It seemed like publicity was starting to be an issue.

"What is it? Oh, I see." Dragon got caught up instantly.

"What is it?" I asked. The rest of us were missing out.

"In all the excitement here, I missed some of the Guild issues. You've been subpoenaed, Dragon. For the case against Saint. Errant and I might need to testify as well," she explained. "The order was actually sent a while ago, and we're running of excuses to stall."

"Can't Dragon just do what she normally does? Courts accept live video testimony, that's never been an issue," Lisa pointed out.

"The problem is this," Elena said, pointing at one of the screens in front of her.

Dragon Not Human, Tinker Weapon Run Rampant, Claims Saint

_In a shocking public statement today, Saint made claims ahead of his trial that his attack against Dragon constituted neither assault nor harassment, because Dragon was not a person. In fact, his claim is that Dragon is not a person at all, merely a computer-generated persona. He further claimed that, because of this, his assault on Dragon was no more a crime than burning a book would be an assault on a fictional character._

_Dragon is perhaps one of the most prolific parahumans today. She was an instrumental member in the Guild's revival, and has participated in nearly all S-class threat operations (including every single Endbringer attack). Part of the reason she can do this is because she is known never to actually leave her home. She operates remote-controlled drones in major battles, and when she isn't using drones, she mass-manufactures many devices for hero and government use – not to mention overseeing the Birdcage._

_Saint claims her reclusiveness is actually just a cover-up, an excuse for an AI to never show up in person. Dragon was not available for comment, but has mentioned in the past a medical condition that prevents her from being out in public. Many suspect it is agoraphobia, though it has not been confirmed._

_Watch Saint's speech in the video below…_

"Long story short… the judge actually _accepted_ the argument, and refuses to accept anything less than an in-person testimony by Dragon."

"Isn't that a bit biased?" I asked.

"People tend to have a fear of AI. The judge probably wants to slam this shut before it becomes a media frenzy," Colin said.

"A little unfair, but you have to understand what sells in the media. Bad news and big headlines sell," Elena said. "Even Endbringers are basically old news. These days they mostly just report which Endbringer attacked, what city was hit, the death statistics, and they're ready to move on in a few days. On the other hand, the idea that the world might be taken over by something new, like a rampant AI, is fresh and exciting."

"There is also the fact that the PRT, and the general public, have been very hesitant about self-replicating intelligences, machines, or power-based life forms taking over the world. It was a common doomsday scenario long before parahuman powers even existed, so it's something the public knew about and have been on the lookout for. Judgment, both public and legal, tend to be harsher on capes that can do this," Lisa said.

I glanced around nervously between Dragon and Amy when I heard that.

"It's true," Colin said. "Even some of my self-repairing armour designs were scrutinized to ensure they couldn't self-replicate completely before approval."

"So it's not hard to understand why the media is running away with this idea. But people like to hop on bandwagons. Even those that are being objective about things are still going to talk about it, and keep the subject in the public awareness," Elena said. She pointed out another example. It looked like it came from a respectable publication, a rather specialized one for engineers and or technology enthusiasts.

Artificial Intelligence: How It Can Change the World, or Already Has

_The concept of artificial intelligence has been something people have imagined, seemingly always out of reach. With every step towards the possibility of a true general artificial intelligence, computer scientists continued to learn exactly how much more complex the issue was. Some of the earliest proposals in the fifties and predicted that AI could be solved within a decade. Then came the harsh reality – it took several decades before computers could even understand natural language, much less have a convincing conversation. Each aspect of a human-like intelligence was fraught with equal difficulty: being able to tell the difference between a dog and a cat was a surprisingly difficult task for a computer, even though it is simple enough for a toddler to solve._

_Even intelligence within a closed, limited context was far more difficult than imagined. Driving – an activity with well-defined legal rules, clearly displayed lines and lights, and repetitive tasks remained elusive until the end of the last decade. After billions of dollars of research, the Tinker Dragon was the first to develop a true fully self-driving vehicle suite that could be mass manufactured. While many other Tinkers had made self-driving vehicles individually, none have been able to explain their work and thus could not contribute to the scientific field as a whole. Despite its limited scope, Dragon's product was a major breakthrough in both the automotive and artificial intelligence fields._

_But what if artificial intelligence is not so out of reach as it appeared? According to recent claims by the villain Saint, he had a complete development kit and access to source code for a fully-realized, Artificial General Intelligence. And that AGI was Dragon herself._

_While we at SPECTRUM publications are not making any claims one way or the other, let us as the hypothetical situation: what would it mean if an AGI was unleashed on the world? What would be its most optimal course of action? What would it mean for humanity? Even when AI was firmly in the realm of science fiction, we already knew that some restrictions would be necessary. Isaac Asimov wrote about the Three Laws of Robotics in 1942…_

As I read through that article, funnily enough they had assumed whatever AI existed was far more rudimentary than Dragon. They assumed cold, hard logic, and while they weren't alarmist, it was mainly because they presumed their hypothetical AI simply didn't antagonize humanity out of some kind of enlightened self-interest. Dragon was more than that. She had emotions – friendships, frustrations. At least, the brain I built her had them. But there was plenty of evidence she had that even while running on pure computer hardware.

"The rumours are only going to increase," Lisa said. "If it gets bad enough, it might even get Saint a whole new following."

"We have enough legal evidence to put Saint away. His theft of Dragon's property alone is legally enough for a conviction."

Lisa shook her head. "Conviction isn't the issue. Saint has a chance to turn the whole public against Dragon. The Dragonslayers already had its crazy fans, but with this much publicity from mainstream media, they might get a whole lot more. We need to humiliate him and make him look like a lunatic. And make sure the judge isn't acting too paranoid."

I decided to try to search the internet myself. Without sitting at the computer.

I hadn't been completely idle while making Dragon's brain. Much of the development of her brain-computer interface was tested using my own cloned brains, after all. There were at least fifty different brains with varying levels of integration of the brain-machine interface device. Now that I knew Dragon was working properly, I figured it wouldn't be too hard for me to hook myself up to a machine or something. At the very least, maybe I could connect to Dragon's wireless internet.

It was harder than I thought. Even with my own approximation of the interface device, I didn't have that natural talent or instinct that Dragon had for navigating binary information. The device did some of the "translation" as it were, but it still took a full brain's concentration just to get it translated into HTML data from an internet connection. Forget getting pictures of web pages, but at least I could sort through text data slightly faster. I'd have to work on that, maybe ask Dragon for some advice later.

For now, I was just going to look for some more news articles myself. Dragon had her own method of searching the internet; I just asked Google for the answers. The results I found were similar to what Elena had shown us, and what Lisa feared.

Yes, most people knew Saint was a villain, and Dragon had a good reputation worldwide. But there's no news like bad news, and bringing heroes down was always juicier gossip than simple factual reports. You could practically tell how reliable the publication was based on their stance. The tabloids and celebrity gossip sites were quick to jump on the "Dragon is a dangerous AI bent on taking over the world." Others used leading headlines like "IS DRAGON TAKING OVER THE WORLD?" And then, of course, they eventually answer the question with a quiet "no" that nobody ever read, because nobody read that far down a terribly-written article. Even reputable sites didn't dismiss him outright – they left the question open, and merely said things like "Saint _claims_ Dragon is an AI." Factual, yes, but they did nothing to deny it.

"I suppose the only way is for me to actually show up in person," she said, coming to the same conclusion.

Lisa nodded. "Yeah, but there's one problem. You look too healthy."

Several eyebrows went upwards.

"We have to keep our cover story," Lisa said. "Saint assaulted Dragon, and her condition was so severe that even Panacea needed a few weeks to get her fixed up. Dragon's too normal for people to buy that story."

"What do you want me to do, give her some deformities or something?" Amy asked sarcastically.

"No, we can probably get by with some fake equipment. Colin, you can whip up a nice wheelchair, right? Maybe something with a built-in ventilator or something. Get us some sympathy points."

"We need to get going before noon," Elena pointed out.

"Colin, Dragon, how fast can you build a wheelchair?"

Dragon's workshop machinery came to life as the two of them immediately began some rapid assembly. The answer was very quickly.

"What about us?" I asked.

"The two of you might want to head back yourselves," Elena said. "New Wave is having its own PR problems, if you want to take a look." She pointed to another screen to her left.

While Amy went up to her computer to read, I decided to use my extra, internet-connected brains to get a handle on things.

New Wave seemed to be faring better than Dragon did, as far as the news went. That was mainly because the Mayor was entirely on our side, and that the PRT was keeping quiet. But, like with Dragon, the tabloids absolutely loved tearing heroes down. And even though Brandish was a lawyer, she was no match for the PRT's legal and public relations team. The tabloids were far less fearful of slandering an independent team.

Papers like the National Enquirer wanted to reclassify Glory Girl as a Master, focusing more on her aura. And since the entire family's powers were all so similar, they went off the deep end of conspiracy theories and claimed the rest of the family also secretly had Master powers. Parahuman Weekly was going all out with the New Wave Villain side, claiming that New Wave staged the whole kidnapping in a desperate attempt to make the movement relevant again.

Even though the PRT wasn't directly stoking the fires, the fact that they were only defending themselves and didn't deny anything said against New Wave was not helping us at all.

"Wait, so we're officially still villains?" Amy asked. "Doesn't that mean we'll need an escort just to cross the border again?"

"Yes. I'm still responsible for all of you. You could come with us to Toronto," Elena said. "Dragon needs to testify, and after she's done, I can accompany you back home."

"Wheelchair's done," Colin said. "What are we waiting for?"

Of course the wheelchair looked like a dragon, too.

* * *

Once again, I had to abandon a large number of my brains in order to fit them into my luggage. And I knew I wouldn't have much time to set up a new network of brains within Toronto, so I would just be operating with what I had. Hopefully it wouldn't take too long, maybe just a day or two.

Again, we went on the plane in full costume (except Errant, whose full power armour couldn't fit in airline seats – he went with just a mask). Even though I knew Narwhal's costume was nothing except forcefields, I had gotten used to hanging out with her in casual clothing. It left me flabbergasted that she kept her clothes on in private, and then strip when she walked out in public.

Then again, maybe it was a strategic decision. It kept the cameras on her, and fewer people were snapping pictures of Dragon.

The flight to Toronto was uneventful. Narwhal and Dragon spent most of it on the phone. It was mostly speaking to either the Guild's legal team or the prosecutors in Saint's case. The case was about to start, and they needed to get everything in place, evidence to be submitted, and all the stuff needed for Dragon to actually testify.

But there were far more cameras upon landing. During the course of the flight, people had heard the news, and the reporters were ready to ambush us for statements and photos.

"Dragon! What made you finally make a public appearance?"

"Narwhal, are these all new Guild members? Aren't they a bit young?"

"What's Narwhal doing at an airport? Can't she fly?"

"She can't fly faster than a plane, idiot."

"Some people said that's an android drone body, is that true? It's so lifelike!"

"That's such a cool wheelchair! Can I buy one?"

"Dragon, can you tell us how you overcame your agoraphobia? Was it agoraphobia?"

"We don't have time for this," Narwhal told us. "We need to get to the courthouse." She threw up a bunch of force fields that blocked off the cameras and cleared a path for us. It didn't deter the crowds, and some deliberately tried to squeeze their cameras past the force fields. But for the most part, they didn't actually stop us. We pushed through, got our luggage, and got out of there with a whole lot of "no comments."

Narwhal flew ahead while the rest of us took a taxi.

* * *

I wasn't sure if the taxi driver gave us the runaround or if traffic was just that bad, but the trip from the airport to the courthouse took more than twice as long as expected. Narwhal was waiting for us, floating back and forth impatiently by the front steps.

"Come on, they need you in there," she said to Dragon. The security guards took their time going over Dragon's wheelchair, but they allowed her in. They took our phones and other devices, apparently they weren't allowed inside. Errant had to leave most of his suit behind as well. They were more concerned with the cameras on them than the actual phone itself; apparently only certain people were allowed to have cameras and other recording devices. The rest of us followed quietly to sit in the gallery.

Upon our entry, the woman I presumed was the prosecutor stood up. "Your honour, our key witness has arrived."

"We apologize for the delay," Narwhal said smoothly. "As you can see, she is not in good physical condition and we needed preparation time to move her out of her home."

"Are you capable of providing testimony?" the judge asked.

"Yes, your honour," Dragon replied.

"No! That's a fake! She's just an impostor!" I had never seen Saint in person before, but it was pretty obvious from his outburst.

The judge banged on his gavel and glared at Saint. "Mr. Alderson, you will keep your client from being disruptive."

"Yes, your honour," the lawyer said. He pushed Saint back down into his seat and started whispering back and forth.

"I can confirm that this is Dragon," Narwhal said. "I can provide a signed affidavit to that effect."

"I as well," Errant added.

I was about to join in to support Dragon, but Lisa stayed my hand. "Your testimony wouldn't be as reliable. It'll just give the defense more room to poke holes. Narwhal and Errant are publicly known to be long-time friends of her," she whispered.

"That should be sufficient," the judge said. "Dragon. Would you come up to the witness stand?"

"Yes, your honour."

She rolled her new wheelchair up to the witness stand. They swore her in. Cameras were all pointed at Dragon, and people were hanging on her every word.

"Dragon, please recall the events of the 12th of July, 2011, from your perspective," the prosecutor told her.

She explained to us what had happened during our rescue of Dinah Alcott and capture of Coil. From her perspective, she was primarily providing coordination, since New Wave had done most of the hands-on work. Of course, some of the details were deliberately omitted. Then she explained how that led to Saint's attack on herself.

"It was around that time that systems critical to my survival began to shut down and fail," Dragon said. "Saint had gained access to –"

"Objection! This was an attack performed over the internet, correct?" Saint's lawyer asked.

"Correct."

"Then it could have been anyone that made the attack. You can't be sure it was Saint."

"It was executed by the Dragonslayers, of that I am certain. His organization used a unique attack vector to bypass my security that they have used in the past. Nobody else in the world has been known to utilize it. It was only recently that I managed to isolate the security flaw. Moreover, my compatriots managed to trace the source of the attack in real-time, and that trace led directly to the Dragonslayers' hideout, and the unique Tinker-tech device that allowed them to bypass my security."

"IP trace logs, PRT and Guild mission reports have been submitted into evidence," the prosecutor pointed out.

"Objection overruled. Sufficient evidence was provided to justify the capture of the Dragonslayers, evidence that has been proven," the judge said. "Dragon, please continue."

"I don't have much more to provide. After the attack, I lost control of most of my systems. I suppose I fell into a sort of coma. I only awoke a few days ago, and discovered my friends had rushed two parahuman healers to save my life."

"In addition to the systems that kept you alive, other systems may have been compromised, correct?" the prosecutor prompted Dragon.

"Yes. Many of my manufacturing facilities as well as my oversight of the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center were disrupted. Thankfully, we have detected no escapes or damage, and it back to full functionality."

"Let it be known that Saint has an associate in the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center named Teacher. Teacher is a Master-Trump who has a long-term, possibly permanent Master effect that makes people loyal to him," the prosecutor pointed out.

I could see members of the jury appear shocked at the news. They were making the connections already.

The judge gestured to the defense. "You may begin cross-examining the witness."

The man stood up.

"Dragon. Saint insists that you're an impostor, someone who merely looks similar to Dragon on video. Can you confirm that you are the one that appeared on video, for example, during this prior court case when speaking to Judge Ellis?"

He showed a tablet with Dragon's avatar, communicating by video phone over some other case.

"I was not seen on that video," Dragon said.

Gasps were heard all around, especially at how easily she answered the question.

"Did you not swear that you would tell the truth?"

"That I did," Dragon answered.

"But earlier you claimed you are Dragon. The very same Dragon that is on this video."

"I am," Dragon said.

"You're contradicting yourself. Did you or did you not appear on this video? Are you the same person or not?"

"I am the one who was communicating to Judge Ellis during that video chat, yes. But I don't appear on that video," Dragon said simply.

"Your honour-"

"I'd like to hear her explanation," the judge said, looking at Dragon.

"It's quite simple. The video you see on there is a computer-generated avatar. Extremely lifelike, yes, though easily reproducible even without Tinkertech. But it's just an idealized version of myself. Given my physical conditions, I had some… body image issues you see. I didn't want people to know what I really looked like."

"It looks rather similar to how you appear now. If you had body image issues, why would you make your avatar appear so similar to how you actually appear?"

"I did not look like this until after I was healed. I was told it required extensive amounts of healing, impossible to do by normal medical procedures."

"Parahuman healing. Those healers being Panacea and Eunoia of New Wave, correct?"

"Correct."

"Are they present? Here today?"

"They're sitting in the gallery." Dragon pointed us out.

"New Wave has been declared a villain group by the PRT, one with a suspected Master. The entire testimony cannot be trusted." For a second, I thought they were talking about me, but then I remembered that the tabloids had plastered that stuff all over their front pages about Glory Girl. This villain designation thing was so annoying.

"Objection!" shouted the prosecutor. "There has been no evidence of Master-like effects from these two members of New Wave. Moreover, all their activities were supervised by two members of the Guild under the S-class truce."

"Objection sustained," the judge said. "We have three sworn statements confirming the witness's identity. You will need more than speculation and hearsay."

"I would request a DNA test…"

"There would be no DNA to compare it to, unfortunately," Dragon said. "I never had a DNA test done before, and I also have no medical records. My only family and all early records of my life were wiped out during Leviathan's Newfoundland attack."

"Is there any way this person sitting in front of us can prove that she is the same Dragon that oversees the Baumann Parahuman Containment Center? The one that originally manufactured and controlled remote-controlled combat suits that eventually came into my client's possession?"

"I can," Dragon said. She tapped the data jack under her left ear. "In fact, I am currently still overseeing the Birdcage. If you would like, I can fly one of my Auto-Bailiffs here for demonstration right now, though it would take about thirty minutes to arrive."

"That will not be necessary," the judge said. "I think we have established her identity well enough. Please get to the point."

Saint was frantically waving his lawyer towards him. They seemed to have a small argument between them. The lawyer looked a little exasperated but walked up to Dragon again.

"I will ask you plainly, Dragon. Remember that you are under oath. Are you an artificial intelligence masquerading as a human?" he asked with little enthusiasm.

Dragon almost looked like she had been caught in a trap, but then a very slight smile crept on to her face. She looked at me, then Panacea, then Errant, then back to the defense lawyer. "I am human," she said in a firm voice.

* * *

There really wasn't much else for us to do. Dragon was only here to make a personal appearance, and that was basically all it took to shatter Saint's defense. After Saint's illogical and maniacal ranting in the courtroom, he was escorted away by the bailiff. I think his lawyer was probably going to try to shift his defense into an insanity plea.

Our role was basically done. Dragon would be returning to Vancouver, along with Errant. Narwhal would be escorting us "villains" back home, again in our cape identities.

With nothing else to do and a need to head back home soon, we just looked for the first flight back with seats for sale. Buying tickets on the way to the airport was not easy. It was back-to-school season, and plenty of people were ending their vacations, and the flights were pretty packed.

"Narwhal and I will buy the tickets," Princess said. The two of them walked off while we lounged around in the airport's shopping area to waste some time. I glanced at the news on TV, and saw that Dragon's public appearance was the big-ticket item of the day. Which, in turn, made many others who were watching the news do a double-take as we strolled by. Of course, there were plenty of cape groupies and gawkers too, but Errant's imposing figure helped make sure they kept their distance.

Panacea got a phone call. She sounded happy to talk. It must have been Vicky on the line. After a few minutes of talking, she relayed the news to me. "Well, it looks like we won't be villains any more," she said. "Carol and her team think that the PRT is going to settle. With Dragon back and on our side, they know their case is getting weaker, and the only publicity would be bad publicity. We have to get back to Brockton Bay and sign some NDAs first, though."

"That's a load of bull," I said. "Calvert was a villain. They know it, we know it. Now they want to keep _us_ quiet over _their_ screw-up? Can't believe they're willing to put so much effort to just to save face."

"They always have," Panacea scoffed.

"I believe they may have used Glory Girl's past incidents of excessive force as leverage," Dragon pointed out. "And they may be abusing their extensive legal funds to prolong the case. An underhanded but very common tactic. They know it is in New Wave's best interest to end this as soon as possible."

That didn't help my mood, so I decided to distract myself. I practiced using my brains, the ones that I had on me that incorporated the brain-machine interface device. Interpreting the data still took too much conscious effort, but I supposed it was like teaching someone to walk. Eventually it would become routine. I tried to use those brains to connect to the airport's wi-fi.

Eventually I got the basics figured out, with some help from Dragon. I didn't get very far; in fact, I only managed to interpret a single web page when the airport wi-fi automatically sent an advertisement at me. Still, I wasn't opposed to doing something touristy in my last hours in Canada. One of the airport restaurants had maple syrup poutine. Dragon and I would both get a chance to expand her palate. She needed to learn the joys of greasy, salty comfort food.

* * *

While we were helping Dragon enjoy the goopy mess, Princess and Narwhal returned with the plane tickets. "Here we go, three tickets back to Boston Logan."

That took me by surprise. "Wait, three? Doesn't Narwhal need to…"

"Look, it's not that I'm not grateful for everything you've done for me, and all the time we've shared. But I know you'll be heading back to Concord because your dad and your team are there. It isn't for me. I've never been attached to Brockton Bay, or Concord, or anything like that. Dragon's offered me protection, and in return I can help keep an eye on her, coach her on, you know, human things. We work well together. My power needs information to work, Dragon's got one of the most extensive information networks in the world. Dragon still needs someone who can spot any issues before they become a problem, and, well, Colin isn't good at several categories of what she'll need help with."

"I see..." I said. I felt... I don't know how I felt. Not betrayed; what Princess – Lisa – was doing was nothing compared to what Emma had done. I couldn't think of her as her cape identity right now. Lisa was my first friend – my best friend – after being a loner for so long. I guess I had unconsciously used her as a replacement for Emma. She'd helped me against Sophia, she'd helped me with Cape life, she was probably the only person who knew all my secrets (stupid bullshit power), and I had trusted her with all of that. And I still could, I guess, but just not having her around felt like a loss anyway.

Lisa suddenly gave me a hug. "Look, I know how you're feeling. I'm still your friend. Keep in touch! Dragon gave you one of her top-of-the-line phones, didn't she? I'll still come back to the east coast to visit. And you can always come visit me – us – out west. Gotta check on your daughter, you know," she said with a grin.

I didn't really know what to say. I managed a small chuckle at her joke, but not much else. I'd never been in a position to just leave my friends behind. I wanted to tell her to stay and hang out and maybe have a few more sleepovers, but I couldn't give her a good reason to. She needed to be with Dragon, and I couldn't tell her to give it up just for my preferences. "Sure. Okay," I mumbled out. Lisa squeezed me a little tighter. I wanted to cry, but it had been so long since I actually had someone's shoulder to cry on.

It started to rain outside. At least the weather agreed.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

\- I wasn't too sure if this chapter was even necessary, but I found it was better to tie off some loose ends this way.


	48. Interlude 9: Homeless

Interlude 9: Homeless

"How's she holding up?" Trickster asked. He could tell from the pounding that Noelle was in another one of her moods.

"Angry, as usual. She calmed down for a few minutes, but got agitated again while you were out. What have you got there?" Oliver asked.

"Don't ask if you don't really want to know," Trickster said. He dragged the large sack a little further down the hall until he could see a hefty pile of equipment, and swapped their positions. It only saved him a short walk, but he wasn't in the mood to drag it much further.

The pounding and inhuman wailing from the deepest part of the base paused temporarily as he approached. "Krouse? Is that… are you there?"

"I know you're hungry, Noelle. Don't worry, I got something fresh for you." Trickster pulled out a pocket knife and cut open the sack. Inside was an moaning, bloody, and clearly drugged-out man. He started to stuff the person through the chute that led to Noelle's chamber, but they were floppy, awkward dead weight.

"I smell it… I smell meat! MEAT!" The impacts and shaking got stronger again. The shaking only made it more difficult for Trickster to get the person into the chute.

"Is that guy… alive?" Oliver asked.

"Yeah. You know how Noelle likes it. Are you just going to stand there or are you going to help?" Trickster snarled.

Oliver quietly joined him and helped align the body with the chute, which slid in easily enough afterwards. There was a crunch of breaking bones, and Noelle calmed down again.

"MORE! No, wait… I don't want… but I'm so hungry."

"Don't you worry about that, Noelle. I'll get you what you need. Just hold on a little longer," Trickster shouted back.

"Won't the police or someone come investigate?" Oliver asked. "Who was that guy anyway?"

"A nobody. The police ain't gonna give a shit about some homeless druggie. Nobody's going to miss him. And it's not like the police are gonna find this place anyway."

Oliver gave a sigh. "Uh, about that… the cloaking system in this base, I think it's failing."

"What? You sure about that?"

"Sure? No. Who even understands this Tinker bullshit anyway? But I think it's failing. The machine's starting to make weird noises, and none of us know how to fix the thing. And who even knows if we're still going to have electricity for much longer. Coil sure isn't paying the bills any more."

"Fuck that guy. We never should have accepted him as our boss!" Trickster snarled as he kicked an already-broken table. "That cheap lying fucker. I'm feeding him to Noelle if I ever see him again."

Dealing with villains was always a gamble. There was obviously no legal recourse when a villain stiffed you. Villains lived and died by their reputation. Accord had done his job. Expensive, but the favours they had performed had arguably been worth it. Accord's word was worth more than most. The man was a total freak, obsessive-compulsive about being neat and tidy. He took offense to anyone who didn't do things properly. He loved contracts. He loved being specific. He loved his image and reputation. A man like that, even though he was difficult to work with, was easy to trust.

So when he recommended Coil, the Travelers took him at his word. Coil at least looked the part. The man legitimately owned an actual secret base with a fancy cloaking system and a private army equipped with crazy technology. And a few spare secret bases too. He had the ability to immediately renovate and reinforce a room just for Noelle. That kind of power seemed like it would have meant something. Maybe powerful enough to find a solution to their problem.

But apparently not. He didn't even have the fucking decency to tell them shit was about to go down. They only found out when the mercenaries decided to move out on their own. Their boss hadn't paid the bills, so they were leaving. Simple as that. The boss hadn't said anything about getting Sundancer out.

That was the worst of the bullshit of all. They found out Coil was literally the Director of the local PRT branch. He literally had the keys to Sundancer's cell, and yet he didn't let her out. That grated on Trickster's nerves more than anything else. He always got a slimy feeling from Coil. He followed orders, but always had a bit of doubt in the back of his mind. Now that doubt was up front and center. Coil had never wanted to help them. He had been lying the whole time. A fool in over his head. A control freak who kept Sundancer locked up because it allowed him even more control over their group.

They didn't have many sources of information about what was happening to Sundancer. The PRT had been pretty quiet on that front. No news of major captures or transfers – having Coil arrested probably meant a whole lot of things were put on hold, so the two of them were probably still in the PRT jail in town. But Trickster couldn't rescue her alone.

Genesis could help, but only sometimes. She could be as much of a liability as help. Ballistic was still injured. Oliver was just useless in combat, but at least he could keep watch on Noelle and the base. In short, even though this was when the PRT was at its weakest, they couldn't take advantage of it.

They knew they had to skip town soon. Maybe go for another consultation with Accord. But Trickster knew Oliver and Genesis wouldn't want to abandon their friends, and Noelle would be even harder to manage without all of them working together.

Trickster was having a hard enough time keeping Noelle calm. Robbing some grocery stores and butchers could only go so far. Coil had maintained a steady supply of meat from wherever. Trickster didn't have the money and needed to steal it himself. Maybe with enough live food, Noelle would have her hunger sated long enough to calmly sneak into Boston.

At least the town provided a steady supply of homeless and white supremacists. With the nazi gang broken, there was no real retaliation for feeding skinheads to Noelle. Hell, he'd be doing the town a service. Trickster headed out once more. He heard about a bar that was popular with that group. He'd find a nice fat one for Noelle while he still could.

On the way out, he checked up on Ballistic. "Yo, Luke, you ready to get off your ass and help for once?"

"Fuck you, Krouse. You try getting hit by a car. I can barely stand up with crutches. Maybe if I had a fucking doctor…"

"Well, maybe next time we can find a boss that'll give us health insurance and not ditch us. I'm heading out. If you ain't gonna help me, then at least help Oliver figure out that damn cloaking system."

* * *

Trickster knew of a place that Nazis tended to gather. He knew because, out of costume, he had accidentally wandered into the diner, expecting to pick up a quick meal. What he got was terrible service and almost received hot lead instead of a hot meal. Now, it would be his hunting ground. With the collapse of the Empire, these bastards were clueless and disorganized.

Many of the less-dedicated members fled quickly. But the so-called "true believers" were even more dedicated, and so they met up in their usual spots. What used to be common neo-nazi hangouts were now outright bases for them.

Trickster walked towards the diner through an alleyway route. He made note of all the things that were roughly human-weight along his route. It was something he found himself doing subconsciously these days. He remained out of costume and inconspicuous until he reached a secluded vantage point that had the diner in view. He hung out by a pile of boxes he knew was just under two hundred pounds. He didn't even need to lift them to check, he just knew.

He changed into his costume and kept a crowbar in hand. It didn't take long before he saw some skinheads leave. They were a group of three, and thankfully all around the same size. That made things easy. He kept an eye on them until one fished out keys from his pocket and they all started to get in the car.

Trickster swapped a large garbage can with the guy in the back. The other two didn't notice right away, and the one he swapped was thrown off-balance by the teleport. He fell on his ass from his semi-seated position. Trickster swung his crowbar, and with a heavy crack, smashed the man in the skull. He crumpled down instantly. He then swapped the unconscious man with another one of his buddies, who had turned in his seat to figure out why the hell there were suddenly boxes of trash in the back seat.

The second man appeared facing him, but again he was in an awkward, twisted seating position. He wasn't fast enough to react to a crowbar swinging to his face. The man screamed as he was hit. He tried to fight back, but blinded and knocked off balance, Trickster was able to rain down multiple blows unimpeded. He was still conscious enough to moan loudly, so Trickster stomped on his throat to silence him.

Unfortunately, by now the third one had noticed what was going on. He was out of his car, crouched low, looking for a cape. He might have even recognized the power and known it was Trickster. A second before Trickster was about to make the swap, the Nazi pulled out a gun and started shooting. His impressive draw speed meant he probably had a lot of experience using it.

Trickster dodged out of the way, then swapped the man with the body in front of him. Like the last guy, this man appeared facing him. But he was holding a gun. And he was alert, ready to fight. And because he had tried to dodge the first few shots, Trickster was out of reach.

Fuck.

The neo-nazi pulled the trigger as fast as he could, and the best Trickster could do was dodge again, while swapping him with something else. One of the bullets grazed him, and his arm burst out in pain.

The man wasted another shot hitting a brick wall across the street before he managed to reorient himself, and this time, Trickster was ready. He swapped the man three more times, adding to his confusion. Meanwhile, he positioned himself better, and readied his crowbar. But he had to swing it one-handed this time.

One final swap put the man facing away from him when he hit him in the neck with the crowbar. But this guy was a tough one, and he fell to the ground still holding his gun. He rolled to face Trickster, who swung the crowbar again and knocked the gun away. The man kicked him in the balls.

That fucking HURT.

"You dirty fucking nig-" That was all the nazi managed to say before Trickster swing back at him and smashed his jaw. He didn't stop there, and kept on swinging over and over. The man had shot him. And kicked him in the nuts. And he was a nazi skinhead. If there was any target for his frustrations, this was it.

He was only broken out of his rage when other people noticed the bodies in the car. That was when Trickster knew it was time to leave. He did one more swap, grabbed the man's keys, and drove off before anyone called the cops.

* * *

Three fresh bodies, two of them alive even. This would probably keep Noelle calm for a few days. Hell, Trickster might even be able to have a normal conversation with her. He had to stop off at the infirmary to clean up the gunshot wound, but thankfully it was just a graze. Not that the infirmary even had much more than gauze and bandages left. The mercs had taken all the drugs and useful equipment with them when they left.

"Noelle? I got something for you."

"Krouse? I can smell it…"

He opened the chute and shoved the first guy in. The dead one was the easiest. The next two tried to resist, however weakly. Trickster knew living food was for Noelle, so he hadn't beat them too badly, but now one of them was actually trying to fight back. Trickster hit him again with the crowbar, but that only woke him further with a burst of adrenaline.

"Stop… please… I done noth…" the man mumbled groggily as he weakly tried to push Trickster's hands away.

"Finally starting to beg, huh? Where's that fucking white pride of yours gone now? Don't worry, you'll finally get to do something useful with your life," he sneered as he shoved him down the chute.

"You got three of them this time? Who were they?" Oliver asked.

"What, you think I give them interviews? Go out for dinner with them before bringing 'em home? Quit asking stupid questions, Ollie. They're Nazis. That's all you need to know. The streets are three Nazis cleaner now. Now start helping, my arm's fucked up."

"Krouse? Is that you? I… I think I'm okay now," Noelle's voice echoed up the chute.

"Noelle! I'm here. How you doin, babe?" Trickster called down.

"What's been happening? Things feel different. I can't remember…"

"You've been hungry for a while. I'll keep getting you food, babe. Don't worry. But the boss ditched us. The dumbass got himself caught. I think we might have to go back to Boston."

"I don't know how long I can stay like this, Krouse. Where's Marisa? I haven't talked to her for a while I think…"

"She got caught too. Don't worry. We'll find a way to get her out. We're going to get out of this together. But we might have to leave soon."

His eyes flicked to the ceiling when he noticed a drop of water drip onto his neck.

"This damn place is falling apart already. I thought this shit was supposed to survive a nuke."

* * *

**Author's Note:**

\- Short one, but I realized there was one more loose thread I needed to address before the next arc.


	49. Excavator 1

Excavator 1

We were enjoying a calm, relaxing flight when, only an hour in, the captain made an announcement.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you that, due to major event at our destination, our flight has been diverted. We will be landing at Pittsburgh International." I could feel the plane make a sharp banking turn.

Pittsburgh was pretty far away from Boston, which made it all the stranger. If a plane was being diverted, wasn't it usually to another, more local airport? New York was close by, as well as Philadelphia… plenty of airports far closer to our destination instead of making us stop at Pittsburgh, of all places.

I, like many other people were asking the staff for details. They either didn't know themselves, or they had been instructed to give everyone a generic answer. The closest thing I got to an actual answer was when I overheard them telling someone else, "I don't know, but it seems like the entire eastern seaboard might be closed..."

The entire eastern seaboard closed off? That could mean only one of two things. Either there was a freak hurricane that suddenly popped up in the last few hours... or an Endbringer. Specifically, Leviathan, who could destroy entire coastlines if he really got going, and often brought massive waves and rainstorms with him.

I didn't get confirmation until we were descending into Pittsburgh. My phone started ringing when we got back into range of the cell network, even before the plane touched the ground.

"Hello?"

"Oh, thank goodness. Taylor, Leviathan's advancing on Brockton Bay right now! He's bound to hit the city in twenty minutes!" came Lisa's voice.

Brockton Bay? Why the heck was Leviathan attacking my crappy little hometown? Not that I wanted more people to die, but didn't the Endbringers usually hit more important places, like New York or Boston or Washington? Places that would actually affect the world?

Some people thought the Endbringers had no plan, that they were essentially mindless monsters. They were still difficult to predict, because they didn't hit completely randomly, but they didn't seem particularly strategic either. It was almost like they had a list of good targets and fished them out of a hat.

Behemoth's first appearance had been in Iran, attacking one of the worlds' largest oilfields and pipelines. Iran was undoubtedly one of the largest oil producers in the world; and such a disaster had caused a second, slightly smaller oil crisis similar to the one that happened in the 70's. His following attacks had hit major population and economic centers of the world, or places where his destruction could trigger a chain reaction of natural disasters. When Leviathan struck, it was just as devastating. Striking major ports and nearly shutting down all naval traffic in the world nearly destroyed the world economy, even more than Behemoth had. His ability to create tsunamis and use water to erode land at greatly accelerated speeds made his damage potential even worse than Behemoth sometimes. The Simurgh seemed to be the odd one out, but people later realized she often ended up Mastering people – important people. Sometimes they were politicians or businessmen. Even if there wasn't someone particularly important lost, it was just assumed that the Simurgh targeted someone _potentially_ great due to her precognition.

So… why Brockton Bay? What did my dinky little hometown have? Leviathan had already destroyed Brockton Bay long ago without setting foot there. The collapse of the international shipping industry spelled absolute disaster for the city, practically causing half the economy to disappear. Criminals and gangs filled the void instead. Already it wasn't much of a town left; was Leviathan just coming to finish the job?

"You're sure it's Brockton Bay?" I asked. Boston was close by, it would make sense for Leviathan to target there instead. They had some renowned universities and institutes, and a lot of important research happened there.

"Yes, we only just got the Endbringer Prediction program back online. We're tracking Leviathan now, he's heading in an almost straight line. Dragon's deploying drones and support units as fast as she can get them online, but we're still stuck on an airplane too. She won't have full control and support until we actually get back to Vancouver."

I turned to Panacea and Narwhal. "Leviathan's hitting Brockton. We need to get off this plane if we're going to save people," I told her.

Her breath hitched when the words hit her, but she firmed up and nodded.

Narwhal was the one who knew what to do immediately. "We should head to the PRT Central Northeast. I hope they're still doing transport runs."

"Strider should be picking up from the CNE headquarters in thirty minutes, if you can make it there in time. If not, I can still send one of Dragon's transports to meet you after," Lisa told us. "Call me just before you get there."

"If all else fails, I'll fly you there myself," Narwhal said.

The landing was agonizingly long. Considering it was an emergency situation where all the flights heading into the airports in the area were being diverted, that was a lot of extra planes trying to land. . Like, every single flight from Europe heading towards New York was being rerouted. The unexpected change in weather and huge influx of air traffic caused more delays. All things considered, the airport and crew did admirably, but I was itching to get off the plane.

I was practically glued to my phone while we waited, watching for updates. We pleaded with the captain to let us off earlier, since we were capes, but procedures had to be followed. The plane itself was still taxiing along the runways looking for a spot to park. Eventually, when we got off, we practically ran through the airport as fast as security would let us.

It was clear that there were no taxis or other transport to get us to the PRT CNE headquarters. Instead of waiting for the damn luggage handlers to get my things out, I simply had them crawl out of my suitcase and find their way to us. Panacea didn't bother picking up her things at all; she'd come back and search the lost and found later. I added the extra bots to the bulk of my costume and Narwhal picked us up, flying to the PRT building.

In the end, we completely missed the mark on Strider; we were well over twenty minutes late after all was said and done. Thankfully, Lisa had anticipated the delays at the airport. She called us to let us know the new plan.

"Dragon's sending a transport ship to you now. Get to the roof," she told us. "She's also going to be late to the fight, she's doing her best to send suits to Brockton Bay directly."

"Don't worry about it," I told her. "Just get us to Brockton Bay."

When we were escorted to the landing pad, there were a few other stragglers who wanted to join the fight. I was grateful they were volunteering to save my hometown. We huddled together under a narrow awning waiting for the transport, hiding from the rain. We heard the sonic boom of Dragon's transport arrival before its lights became visible through the rain clouds. It landed vertically on the roof, and within minutes we were all in the air again, flying at supersonic speeds towards Brockton Bay.

* * *

As we reached Brockton Bay, it was strangely unfamiliar. I had never seen it from the air before – we always had to drive down to Boston to take a plane. But even worse, the power was out. Much of the city was dark and flooded, streetlights weren't working, and all I could see were silhouettes of familiar buildings from light reflected off the water. Flashes of light from capes and weaponry occasionally gave brief glimpses of visibility. Legend himself was probably the brightest light source over the Bay, and his lasers pointed the way to the Endbringer.

Dragon dropped us a fair distance west of Captain's Hill, where they had set up the forward command post and triage area. Everything was running on backup generators, with floodlights covering the area. Narwhal immediately took off for the command tent to figure out how she could help fight the Endbringer. Meanwhile, the two of us were ushered to the medical tent.

"Panacea! Eunoia! Thank goodness you're here!"

"When you didn't show up after the fighting started we feared the worst-"

"Hey, it's you two! Nice meeting you again!"

A blur of faces started ushering us where we were needed.

"Glory Girl! Where is she?" Panacea asked. "Is my family alright?"

"Your team is fine, except Shielder. I'll take you to him," someone told her.

"Shielder? How is he doing?" Panacea shouted. She quickly rushed to her cousin, who was being looked after by his father. Thankfully, it wasn't too bad. A few broken bones. He was in a lot of pain, but nothing that Amy couldn't handle. He had been trying to save several capes, but Leviathan had simply overwhelmed his shields and smacked him down. He was lucky to be alive, though he was rescued by the very capes he was saving.

Neither Panacea nor I had the time to chat. As expected, there were many capes to treat. Far more than I could help with the bots I had on hand. I needed to pull more of them towards me. As I reconnected to the network of bots in town, I was able to quickly get a survey of the damage to the town. A nighttime Endbringer attack was bad enough, the rain and flooding just made things worse.

The capes had already been fighting for an hour. Not only was the city flooded with seawater, even the sewers had been backed up. The water was dirty and some of the capes would suffer nasty infections if they weren't treated quickly.

I could see the Triumvirate present, blasting and smashing away at the monster. I recognized some of the heavy-hitting local capes; Dauntless's signature lightning and Vista's space-warping effects were hard to miss. The capes seemed to be more disorganized since Dragon had arrived later than she usually did, but there were enough experienced capes that they had mounted a decent defense. Unfortunately, this time there were no armbands to help manage and communicate with each other.

While I had buried many of them underground and in the sewers for long-term storage, many of the bots within the city had been washed out to sea by Leviathan's initial wave. If only we had arrived a few hours earlier on the previous flight, I could have changed so much.

Then again, maybe the Endbringers had planned it that way. Sometimes people wondered if Endbringers were smarter and had a grand plan. Even aside from the weird cults like the Fallen, some people still considered the Endbringers an act of god, or gods themselves. People always tried to find some kind of meaning in the destruction. Maybe Leviathan attacked because Dragon wasn't available to help. Then again, maybe we should count ourselves lucky that he didn't hit us two weeks earlier.

I didn't look too deeply into it. Leviathan was here. I was here. He was destroying my hometown and I would do what I could to stop him. It was better that I was jumping into an Endbringer battle in the middle, instead of not at all. Even if half of my arsenal in Brockton was gone, I had reserves. Before I left for Vancouver, I had bots covering half of New Hampshire and bits of Maine and Massachusetts. I had resources to spare, and only a small percentage of my total number had been swept away. I just needed to bring more of them here.

I didn't have a plan to attack Leviathan. My main concern was trying to find my dad and my friends. I couldn't see much with my bots, but at the very least I could tell that Dad was still in Concord. Safe. Relatively safe, at least. Leviathan had completely sunk Kyushu and Newfoundland before, so if he really wanted to sinking the entire state of New Hampshire was not outside his ability. But it was rare that he went that far. I wondered if I should phone him to let him know… but I didn't want to worry him. Heck, if he knew I was back already he might just do something dumb like rush over here.

The Docks and the Boardwalk had been completely flooded, some parts entirely wiped out. Without Dragon, and the disorganization within the local PRT, meant that the people had less warning to evacuate. Still, it looked like most people had managed to get out. But not everyone. There were still many dead bodies that my bots came across, trapped inside buildings, dead from drowning or hypothermia.

Until I got more bots into the city, I couldn't help them. I started forming multiple copies of Abyssal and Roamer everywhere I had bots and had them run towards the city at maximum speed. All the bots I had in a tri-state area were now flooding towards Brockton Bay.

Meanwhile, I used the few bots I had on me to start doing medical procedures. Panacea had already started. While Behemoth had mostly caused burn injuries, Leviathan actually did a lot of blunt trauma. Even more than drowning – but I guess that was for the capes that made it to the medical tent, not the population in general. Those that actually drowned weren't brought here.

As for the actual fighters, Leviathan took them out in a very basic way. Despite his mastery over water, what was more threatening was his speed. His punches, kicks, tail whips, and water echo simply slammed capes with massive amounts of blunt force. Just about anyone short of Alexandria's Brute-ness went down in one hit. That meant a lot of broken bones and concussions, and some infections from the dirty water.

Things I could treat. Heck, my bots might even be able to pump water out of partially-flooded lungs for some people. With my improved bots and practice, I was feeling far more confident about helping these people than Behemoth's victims.

"Incoming wave!" shouted a flying cape from the fight. He flew across everyone, repeating himself over and over. A few heroes kept attempting to fight while several others stopped hitting Leviathan and ran east towards the sea. Others attempted to evacuate themselves, but the medical tent was already the highest ground there was. Without good coordination or communication between them, the warning was not as effective as it could have been. In the ensuing moments, a few of the more aggressive front line fighters suddenly found themselves with less support and were severely injured. Some were killed instantly.

Had it been like this for the past hour?

A large group of my bots were now flooding into the city. Two hundred copies of Abyssal riding Roamer streamed in, dispersing themselves as they arrived. I had my bots swim through the flooded city, searching for anyone who might still be alive. I didn't know how to fight Leviathan, but at the very least I could do search and rescue better than anyone else. In the dark, murky depths, few capes would be seen underwater. My bots didn't exactly see either, but they could feel them out.

Capes which fell into the water unconscious were now instantly lifted back up and carried away from the fight by my bots. Plenty of people had died before we managed to get here, but I was determined to make sure as few others would as possible.

I was expecting the wave to arrive earlier, given the cape's warning. Was it a false alarm? Maybe just premature – when it came to Leviathan, there was no question about whether there would be a city-wiping wave or not. Only when it would come.

I couldn't see anything outside. The bright lights of the triage tent blinded me against the dark skies and the horizon. I tried to sense the water movement with my bots, but their range was only about a quarter mile out to sea. I assumed the flying cape could see better than I could. Up on Captain's Hill, we were all hoping the medical and logistic tents were on high enough ground to survive the oncoming attack.

I soon noticed the swell. My bots lifted up. Higher, and higher, and higher. This wasn't a wave that I had ever seen before. There was no crest or curl that I imagined from all those surfer images. It was more like a tide, one that kept on rising and rising, up over the roofs of the Boardwalk shops. It looked like the entire sea was coming at us. I had no idea how wide it was, but every single bot along the coastline sensed it, which was over a hundred miles across. While we were set up to protect one city, the wave must have been wide enough to hit multiple cities all along the coast. There was no way all the heroes assembled could stop it all.

We watched, a nearly-hopeless effort of blocking a tiny portion of the massive wave that struck the entire coast. Thankfully a few more capes had decided to focus on protecting Captain's Hill as well, and the water was diverted around us. I couldn't say the same for the rest of the city. What had already been flooded was now outright submerged. Even worse, every road and highway leading to Brockton Bay had been struck by the tsunami. Brockton Bay would not be getting any support by land from the nearby cities, at least not by the roadways.

It was loud, but at the same time, unnervingly calm. There was just water. Lots of water. Receding water. No lasers, no explosions, no guns, no fighting. Everyone was on edge, waiting, hoping that the Endbringer had decided it was enough. Nobody knew where he was, but everyone's eyes were scanning the sea.

Before the waters from the tidal wave fully receded, Leviathan came sprinting from the water. He struck one group of capes before they could respond. He immediately turned to another team, whose Blasters and Brutes were more ready. Instead of striking them, he changed direction so quickly that the water sticking to his body flew off, continuing forward.

That was more than just momentum. That was his infamous water echo. More than just some drops of water that had been flicked off of him, the water retained his shape – and his power. It slammed into the second team while Leviathan began to attack a third.

I felt helpless even as my bots did their best to rescue the capes, but the powerful waves were hindering my bots just as much as the other capes. I had gotten used to my bots being the small ones, overwhelming the targets with sheer numbers and sneaking into critical areas with precision and secrecy. Now, I felt outnumbered as every single water molecule was working against me, and even my bots had nowhere to hide.

* * *

Glory Girl had already come in once. Panacea prioritized her, naturally, but they didn't have time to chat. Just a quick hug before she had to continue healing the massive number of other injured capes. We were starting to catch up to the backlog, and the number of capes waiting on treatment were actually going down. Healing capes in general were rare, so the two of us was actually a substantial addition.

I, of course, was finding myself to be more effective than in the Behemoth fight. Back then, I couldn't really do much more than clean wounds. Radiation and electrical burns weren't something I could treat. But concussions and direct physical trauma I could deal with – and even better, I could deal with them en route.

Of the many capes I found down on the battlefield, their injuries were mostly treated by the time they actually reached the medical tent, enough for the other healing capes like Bangeriffic or Inner Peace could finish the job off. That way, Panacea wasn't going to be overwhelmed.

Since Dragon was still unprepared, caught off-guard and out of her base, the entire battle had to be done without her aid. Medically, that meant there was less organization, and fewer people knew who had been downed, response times were slower. I tried to make up for it for now, at least until Dragon could get here, using my bots to keep track of who had gone down and organize healing based on who was still inbound to the medical tent. A lot of the prioritization was still based on Panacea. There were still some that only she could treat, and there were plenty of capes to manage.

Leviathan was fast and tricky, often ambushing capes. It was especially bad when Dragon wasn't around to help coordinate with her armband communicators. While Behemoth was powerful and extremely lethal, at the very least he was somewhat predictable. More than that, Behemoth tended to kill outright. That actually meant fewer capes ended up coming to the medical tent for treatment. Leviathan was the opposite; it was hard for Brutes to take the front lines and support capes to take the rear, because it was hard to know which direction he would strike from. A lot of capes who had no ability to take a hit were getting struck down.

We needed every advantage we could get before we could mount a new offensive against Leviathan. Casualties in the first hour had been higher than average for Leviathan fights. I was hoping to turn that around. Even though many of my bots had washed out to sea, the rest of the bots I had further inland were arriving. I had several orders of magnitude more bots than I had for the Behemoth battle. Instead of some rudimentary search-and-rescue with a few copies of Abyssal, I was now able to fully treat many capes on the field.

And now we were making a difference. Panacea was able to save even the ones whose organs had been turned to mush. I was able to reinforce broken bones and gently cradle the heavily injured with my bots as soon as they went down, and bring them to the tent. With the two of us around, the survival rate was noticeably higher. Capes did manage to realize this. Morale was going up.

In fact, by now I was starting to have an excess of bots. The more bots I had, the more I could do. I wasn't just limited to rescuing and treating people after they were injured. I could break up the surface tension of the water so impacts didn't hurt as much. I could even prevent people from drowning in the first place by lifting people to the surface. Prevention was better than the cure, wasn't that the old saying?

Speaking of prevention, I didn't want Shielder or Glory Girl to get hurt again. The two of them were the most at risk; most of the rest of the team had some kind of Blaster ability that could keep out of range. Funny how the two on my team known for their shields and invulnerability had the highest chance of getting hurt. Although a coating of bots wasn't strong enough to completely block Leviathan's attacks, it would hopefully let them survive long enough to be brought to Panacea if necessary.

I couldn't armor every cape with my bots – mainly because I didn't know how their powers worked. But for my own team, and some other capes whose power I understood, I could help them out. I didn't have time to explain it to everyone, so I just had bots cover their bodies a little bit at a time. Given that most capes were being soaked in both rain and seawater, most people didn't notice.

* * *

A constellation of lights in the sky accompanied by sonic booms heralded the arrival of Dragon's reinforcements. Her transport ships had been doing a lot of work ferrying more capes and supplies constantly, but the ones arriving now were her full combat-ready models. Errant arrived with her.

In just the short time while Panacea and I had been there, we were already making headway into the casualty count. The reserves were bolstered and with communication bands being passed around, we were finally ready for a more coordinated strike.

With more than twenty heavily-armed, ten-foot-tall dragon robots standing around, people were feeling a lot more confident. More reinforcements had arrived. While the Triumvirate and other high-class capes engaged Leviathan to buy us a little extra time, a quick and simple plan was hashed out.

The first simply involved distributing the armbands so that people could coordinate better. We needed it especially with Leviathan, who had a tendency to disappear under the water. Despite his thirty-foot frame, he could easily duck down and swim in areas as shallow as a few feet. And with his hydrokinesis, he didn't even produce waves when he did. We needed to actually find him before we could attack him, after all.

We didn't have time to gather everyone to actually explain the plan, but that was where Dragon came in. As the armbands were distributed, each cape received personalized instructions for their role in the attack. I guess I technically had the ability to do that too, but obviously people trusted Dragon more than me.

Then capes were divided into a few teams. Movers were given a search pattern to follow, divided among both fliers and fast runners. After them came a team of "trappers" who had abilities that could slow Leviathan down. The third team were the heaviest hitters. Their job was self-explanatory, though they would also receive updates from Dragon regarding timing their attacks so there wouldn't be too much friendly fire. Lastly, there was a team of support capes, mainly Brutes, hydrokinetic Shakers, Trumps, and Movers who could transport others. The basic plan boiled down to "find him, stop him, hit him."

When I received my armband, Dragon spoke to me immediately.

"_Eunoia, how extensive is your bot coverage of the city?"_

"Complete coverage, and getting better by the minute," I told her.

"_You're primarily on the search and support roles. But I'd like to add you to the offensive team as well. Can you multitask enough for that?"_

"It won't be a problem, except I don't have enough of my Nanothorn-style bots," I told her.

"_I've collected all the ones you made inside my workshop. They should be arriving with one of the transports."_

I could sense the bots come into my range, falling down from the sky. Dragon had dispensed it as part of an airdrop. The parachutes were too slow for my tastes, so I had my bots cut through the sides and escape. They came flooding out, riding the wind until I clumped them all together into a denser mass. I decided to make them all into a single, fast-moving version of the Roamer so it could catch up to Leviathan.

"I got your delivery. Thanks, Dragon," I told her.

"_Leviathan spotted, sector G12!_"

It was time to strike back at the monster invading my hometown.


	50. Excavator 2

Excavator 2

We were soon ready to mount the biggest coordinated strike in the entire battle, now that we had Dragon helping with organization. The Triumvirate was taking on Leviathan right now, holding him back while the rest of the capes got organized. Legend was shooting freezing beams to try to trap the monster in his own water, while Alexandria simply flew at him to punch and wrestle him into submission. Eidolon was doing something weird; it was sometimes hard to figure out what power set he had on at the time. But I was guessing most of his power was some form of water manipulation to counter Leviathan's own. The rest of his powers I couldn't figure out, but one was clearly a Brute power given how he took a water echo to the face and remained unfazed.

We were hoping to jump straight into an attack wave, but Leviathan was more slippery than his size suggested. Even against the Triumvirate, fighting in partly-frozen water, slowed by Eidolon, and held back by Alexandria, he managed to fight back. He whipped his tail at Alexandria, knocking her off his neck and smashing her through an apartment building. He actually burrowed underneath the ice that Legend's lasers were creating, and then flung chunks at the hero with a massive geyser-like burst. As soon as Legend's barrage paused for just a second, Leviathan dove down into the water-flooded streets and disappeared.

That meant we had to actually find him again. The flyers took to the air in pre-determined search patterns while the trapper teams spread out in a way to minimize response time. Most of New Wave was part of the search team. Not only were their flight powers ideal, most of the teams' Blaster powers glowed, which provided a lot of necessary lighting in the darkened city.

It was scary for me, too, realizing how much control Leviathan truly had over water. Even my bots couldn't sense him well. You would think a thirty-foot-tall monster swimming underwater, right past my bots, would be noticeable. If it had been during the day, perhaps. But right now my bots were just trying to sense the water's movements by feel, and I couldn't notice anything bigger ripples caused by the wind and rain. I knew exactly where he had been when he dove down, and I never sensed him leave. Since my bots were operating nearly at the molecular level, Leviathan must have been able to control water to that level of precision.

I knew this was also the most dangerous time for the search team, and I couldn't do much to help. Unlike the other two Endbringers, Leviathan liked to ambush capes. Even if they flew high above the water, Leviathan was _fast_. Especially so if he was attacking them from behind. So I did my best to keep an eye on them as well, making sure my bots clinging to their costumes were ready to harden into a protective shell at a moment's notice.

We cleared the area, sector by sector as Dragon laid it out. We took the cautious approach, beginning the search from the areas closest to the medical tent first instead of Leviathan's last known location. By securing the areas, there were support capes that could place more defenses. One had a kind of landmine-like Shaker power, and another Tinker was able to set up sentries and motion detectors. From a dark battlefield where we could barely see, we were getting back more control of the battlefield.

Laserdream was the one who spotted Leviathan first. Well, Laserdream and I did. I sensed a major movement in the water and "tapped" her on the shoulder with my bots to get her attention. It made me wonder if Leviathan had deliberately allowed me to sense him, or if this was just a result of him shifting strategies. Laserdream was able to signal everyone quickly with a firework display of lasers straight into the sky while backing away from Leviathan.

Unfortunately, Leviathan appeared to understand that he had been found, and he sent multiple jets of water at Laserdream. She flew backwards trying to dodge them, and even tried to intercept them with her own lasers. Unfortunately, she wasn't well-equipped to handle Leviathan on her own, and her partner was of no help. They ditched as soon as they saw Leviathan.

Laserdream got struck with a blast of water. Her shields were among the weaker ones in her family, and even with my bots on her to form some additional armour, the water blast knocked the wind out of her. She fell from the air, and I did my best to cushion her fall into the flooded streets with my bots.

"_Laserdream down, B-12. Ermidillo down, B-12. Leviathan sighted, B-12." _Dragon's armband system had a quick response time. I was already transporting her and her patrol partner. Though she was injured, I knew that she could survive as long as I got her to the medical tent. I just needed someone to take care of Leviathan.

Thankfully, backup didn't take long to arrive. Alexandria was the first, having taken a beeline from wherever she was straight into Leviathan. I also saw space warp as Vista helped Aegis carry Clockblocker to the monster. I was surprised Vista was even allowed on the battlefield. She was young. I was ready with my bots to interfere, but there was plenty more capes as well.

I'd be able to get Laserdream to get healed while the others distracted the monster. I think she was just suffering from broken ribs and bruising, which I was already taking care of. As far as Endbringer injuries went, that was quite lucky. I knew Panacea would want to prioritize her cousin once I brought her in.

Alexandria made contact, this time much harder. The impact was so strong that I thought Leviathan had counterattacked with a water echo, but in reality it was just all the water on his skin being shaken off all at once. She then grappled with the monster, focused on holding Leviathan still so that everyone else could combine their efforts. A Tinker of some kind used some kind of cannon that lobbed balls of sticky goo. It was a little bit like containment foam, but far denser, stickier, and stronger. It hardened to the point that even my bots that got caught in it couldn't cut through or escape.

Legend arrived and again used freezing lasers to slow down Leviathan and limit his retreat options, while Eidolon joined in, this time with some kind of glowing-donut power that tried to wrap around Leviathan. Despite all that, Leviathan still managed to shake Alexandria off and dodge one of the glowing donuts. Even more capes started piling on, trying to slow down the Endbringer enough for heavier hitters to arrive.

* * *

While the search-and-contain capes engaged Leviathan, I had more time to perfect my rescue and treatment options. I still had more and more bots from out of state entering Brockton Bay. Thankfully the dark, rainy night hid the sight of hundreds of monstrous horse-shaped monsters running parallel to the highways. I wasn't looking to overwhelm Leviathan, but to carpet the entire city. Where I used to just have enough bots to keep watch over the city, I was slowly building up to the point where I could make the entire city into one giant conveyor belt.

Any cape that went down would in my town would be immediately carried to the medical tent. Any straggling civilians would be taken a safe distance away. And with that many bots, maybe I could even exert some control over the water, or Leviathan himself. At least, that was the theory.

The reality was capes of all different strengths and powers were going ham at the Endbringer. And Leviathan repeatedly proved to be tougher than he seemed. There were dead zones where my bots simply couldn't reach because of some other Shaker power, or one cape that would drain my bots of energy to fuel their own powers without realizing it, or another cape that simply blew them up because their Blaster power was that strong. Other areas I just couldn't reach properly because space itself kept warping and straight lines stopped being straight. That was probably Vista, but there were other capes that could mess with direction and movement too.

I still did what I could, and capes kept going down every second. Once enough of my bots were in the city then I could practically take over search and rescue for everyone, freeing up far more capes for the fight. I also warned Panacea and other healers to prepare for a major influx of injuries – both because the fighting was ramping up again, and because more people would actually survive the trip to the tent.

* * *

Even though he was being slowed down, Leviathan was still deadly. Even with both legs glued down, one arm bound, and tail being pulled by five different capes, the monster still managed to lash out with its one remaining arm. That arm went straight towards the group of young wards. Aegis twisted in the air, but he couldn't dodge fast enough because he was carrying Clockblocker. Space twisted just a fraction of a second too late, pulling the pair of them away from Leviathan. But Aegis was falling through the air, smashed nearly in half. He dropped Clockblocker, and both of them were falling to the ground unconscious. I prepared my bots to catch them, but Vista was also reshaping the direction of gravity so they fell along a slope instead of directly impacting. I made their impact as cushy as I could.

"_Clockblocker down, B-14. Aegis deceased."_

Few others noticed the message, because Leviathan suddenly became completely still. Frozen solid in time. The team had done their job. Capes cheered as it appeared that Leviathan had finally been stopped, though a few people hurt themselves because they didn't fully understand Clockblocker's power.

Dragon explained the updated plan to everyone through the armbands and quickly organized the battlefield in preparation for when Clockblocker's power wore off. Meanwhile, I took care of the downed Wards. Vista was trying to get them closer to the medical bay with her space-warping, but didn't have the actual strength to pull the two bigger boys herself. I moved her along with them. She was surprised but realized quickly that I was there to help.

With Vista's help, it didn't take long to gather both the boys and… their pieces. I could move them far more gently than Vista trying to tug at their costumes. Clockblocker was badly injured, but alive. Aegis even worse off, with the bottom half of his body somewhere two blocks away. Dragon's armband declared him deceased, but I could sense from my bots that he was just barely alive. Any normal person would have been long dead, and his power was the only thing keeping him going. I had my bots flood over both of them, stabilizing their broken bones and clotting their major bleeding. For Aegis I practically knitted a new skin just to hold his organs in. But they would survive, I would make sure of it.

Vista and my bots working together got them to the medical tent in seconds.

Back at the main battlefield, people were just reinforcing the other bindings on Leviathan while the attacking teams got into place. Eidolon's ring-traps now wrapped around him. The Tinker using the goo covered Leviathan's left arm and tail with the stuff. Legend froze the water around Leviathan's legs all the way up to the hip. Other, slower capes joined in, tying down or trapping Leviathan further before he could break out of the time-lock.

We didn't know how long all the restraints would hold Leviathan, so everybody readied an attack all at once. Dragon led the offensive teams with each of her assault drones. Before everyone was in place, Leviathan twitched.

"_Blasters, attack!"_

It wasn't ideal, but it was still the most coordinated simultaneous hit that we had managed on Leviathan. Blasters of all kinds, from Legend's laser beams (now hitting with concussive force) to Miss Militia's anti-tank RPGs flew towards Leviathan as the monster struggled against the restraints. I saw Lady Photon raining destructive beams alongside Legend, while Flashbang was throwing his bombs at it.

There was so much firepower smashing into the place that even my bots in the area went blind, and the ones near Leviathan were destroyed.

I wasn't the only one going blind. Many people were taking pot shots towards the general area of Leviathan without being able to see, which meant a lot of unintended crossfire. Friendly fire was bringing down as many capes as Leviathan was, right now, and I intended to get as many of them the healing they needed.

Meanwhile, I focused on moving the local Wards team that made the attack possible to the medical tent. They arrived just as Laserdream was finished being healed.

"Oh dear lord, what happened to them?" Panacea asked.

"Clock… first…" Aegis croaked out.

"Not this time," Panacea said. "You're literally chopped in half! Even with your power… ugh. Where's your other half?"

I shuffled his legs and pelvis over to her. It took her longer than her usual healing, but she did manage to stitch Aegis back together before moving on to Clockblocker.

"This one's got a concussion, Eunoia. You'll have to finish off the treatment."

"Got it," I said. "Vista, watch your teammates while they get some rest, okay?"

"I can still help! I'm barely even hurt, let me get back out there!" she protested.

"Not right now you can't," I advised. "Everyone's just shooting at Leviathan from every direction. You'll just mess up their aim. Wait until it dies down again."

Opening the tent flap a little just proved my point. It almost looked like dawn, with the intense brightness of continuous explosions and beams brightening the entire landscape from the east.

* * *

When the dust, light, and water settled, the city was missing a neighbourhood and gained a new crater. Multiple buildings had toppled or flattened. But Leviathan was still standing. Even worse, the massive barrage from all the Blasters had mostly destroyed all the restraints that were holding Leviathan back, except for Eidolon's power. And that power alone wasn't enough to hold Leviathan back completely.

The monster struggled against the restraints, and was going to break free soon. Most other capes that had been part of the capture team couldn't safely get near him again, but maybe I could do something. I racked my many brains trying to figure out how maximize my tiny bots' effectiveness against the giant to help the attackers.

"_Striker team, engage!"_ The command was short and quick as many more melee-based capes rushed forwards, with Alexandria in the lead. I noted that Errant was one of them, and he was charging in with a blade coated in nanobots. Dragon was doing the same with several of her suits that were specialized for melee attacks.

A freezing cape attempted to slow Leviathan down by icing up the water around his ankles, but unlike Legend, he had to do it at short range. He barely even caught up to the Endbringer before nearly getting stomped on. A rock-controlling cape created pillars of stone to hem the monster in, but it barely slowed him down. The Endbringer continued to charge at the group of capes, who were powerless to stop him. Glory Girl was part of this attack wave, and even her massive strength paled in comparison to the Endbringer. I was worried for her; it would only take a small mistake to be fatal.

Leviathan's greatest advantage was his speed and agility. Many of my bots were already sticking to him, doing what little they could to slow him down or whittle away at his skin. The bots on Leviathan's body began to crosslink with the ones in the water, forming a net that gripped his entire body. Long draglines and fins extended outwards, creating massive amounts of drag through the water that flooded the city.

It slowed him down a little. It didn't seem like much but I guess I was contributing to the fight as much as any other cape, not counting the healing I was doing. Glory Girl narrowly dodged out of Leviathan's grasp as he leapt out of the water. The drag nets I'd attached to him were working well, causing him to lift hundreds of tons of water up with him. Given how close Leviathan's arms came to her, I was sure that my efforts had also saved her life, though I didn't know by how much. The capes on the ground were immediately drenched with the massive plume of water. They were soaked, but alive.

I yelped in concern when I saw Glory Girl get caught off-guard as Leviathan went for a follow-up strike against her. She was catching her breath, thinking she was high enough to be safe. Leviathan had leapt off a building and my draglines weren't enough to stop him. Suddenly, she was sent tumbling by a sudden rush of intense turbulence in the air and the crack of a sonic boom. It was too dark to see what had really happened, but I could feel it through my bots. Leviathan went from moving at highway speeds to an immediate stop.

Alexandria. Of course. Her dark costume made her harder to track at night. Even Glory Girl stopped to watch her face off against Leviathan. It seemed kind of obvious that she would be Glory Girl's idol; her powers were basically everything Glory Girl had, but better. Greater strength. Greater speed. Greater indestructibility.

But that wasn't enough to match Leviathan. The monster was fast. Despite adding yet another crater in its body, Leviathan didn't seem to care, and smacked Alexandria. Even knowing Alexandria was basically indestructible, I winced at the power behind it. The hit launched her to the horizon, though seconds later she came roaring back for another round.

I did my best to try to restrain Leviathan, slow him down just a little bit so that the world's greatest flying brick could actually land a hit. Suddenly, huge cables made of light wrapped around all of Leviathan's limbs, completely restraining him. I traced back to where the light originated from and saw Eidolon. I wasn't sure if this was the same restraining power he used earlier or if he'd switched powers, but it looked like he was mainly focused on support instead of offense for this entire fight.

Eidolon was a great confidence booster for many capes. The fact that he was restraining Leviathan encouraged many more to jump into the fray, and the second wave of capes began fighting in earnest.

For a few seconds I thought we had Leviathan on the back foot, I really did. But even being beset on all sides, Leviathan was fighting back with equal ferocity.

Even restrained, he was still doing damage simply using his hydrokinesis and attacking with water directly. I needed my bots in the water to actually affect the water's movement. I called upon even more of my bots to rush towards the city, hoping to flood the waters. When Leviathan tried to move water with my mesh of bots, they could at least slow it down and absorb some of the energy; turning it into something like a jelly instead of a pure liquid. It reduced the impact of his water attacks, and slowed them down just enough to give the heroes a fraction of a second more to react.

The capes didn't give up. If anything, the destruction signalled to the capes that collateral damage didn't matter, and they were even more destructive. I continued to see more massive blasts of energy, strange bombs, capes spewing mystery liquids at the Endbringer. Despite the fact that Brockton Bay hadn't exactly been kind to me, I didn't want the city to be completely leveled. I needed to go on the offensive. Endbringers usually retreated when they eventually took enough damage. I just hoped we could reach that tipping point a little bit sooner.

I decided that would be the right time to join in with the special version of Abyssal made out of my version of the Nanothorns. I would join Errant and Dragon, who for now had been dodging around and looking for an opening. They appeared to have extremely good coordination – probably something they had worked out together, or maybe their suits were sharing data. But instead of charging straight in and hitting what they could like a lot of other Strikers, they were trying to be nimble, dodging Leviathan's strikes to get closer to the torso.

"_All capes, Thinker has suggested we aim for the base of the tail,"_ Dragon announced through the armbands. I was guessing that was Princess doing something with her power. Not everyone followed the new advice, which might actually be a good thing. It would have been worse if it got too crowded and there was too much friendly fire.

Errant and Dragon managed to somehow get behind Leviathan while he was distracted with several other capes. Their blades dug into the armour-like skin. They sank in less than a foot, but then Leviathan lashed out and attempted to swipe at him. He had to break off with a fancy flip, aided by maneuvering thrusters on his suit. Dragon had to do the same, except her suit flew into the air for safety.

To be honest, that one-foot deep wound was probably among the deepest wounds that an Endbringer had ever suffered. People had managed to gouge out parts of their skin before with especially powerful attacks. But in terms of _depth_, the narrow cut that Dragon and Armsmaster managed was probably in the lead. And given how quickly Leviathan had reacted to the two of them specifically, I was guessing they were onto something.

I rushed in with the Nanothorn Abyssal to follow up on their work. I dove into the same wounds that Dragon and Errant had inflicted. I noticed that they had exhausted their own nanobots' power and cutting ability far earlier than expected. Inside the "wound" I had to clear away plenty of bots that had been fully exhausted of their usefulness. My own bots dove deep and started carving into Leviathan's body where they left off, but the body was far, far harder than I expected.

I may have managed another inch at most before my own bots had been used up. I blew all their energy in a single continuous grinding action, and it had barely hurt the monster. I had thought the skin was like a type of armour, protecting something soft and sensitive inside. That wasn't the case. Instead, it was the opposite. The outside was soft, probably easily-replaceable material, protecting an even stronger inner core.

As I watched Leviathan thrash most of the Striker team with his extreme agility, I couldn't even fathom how it was possible for a material _that hard_ could simultaneously be _that flexible_. My nanothorn bots could cut through diamond like butter. Against this material, they were failing after digging a few inches.

There was no point in trying to try the same thing over and over when it wasn't working. A hammer didn't work and I had a quadrillion hammers. My cabon-nanotube-diamond bots may have been some of the most advanced materials known to science, but Endbringer bullshit defied science. And yet, maybe the solution was bafflingly simple.

When faced with physics-defying materials, use physics-defying materials against it. Sometimes the only way to fight fire was with fire. The upper layers of material that we had managed to cut through left some fragments of the Endbringer's body. My bots collected all that they could, and used those instead of the diamond tips to slice or grind deeper into the wound.

It seemed to be effective, but too slow. Few of the fragments were ideally shaped or sized. I worked with what I had, but I knew I could have done better if I had more. The few fragments of Behemoth I had could have helped only a little, even if they hadn't been too far away. If only I had more time, more material, more experimentation, I could have figured something out. But I had none of those on the battlefield.

And I wasn't the only one who was having poor luck. All the rest of the capes were having trouble too.

"_We're losing momentum. I'm calling a retreat and regroup."_ I overheard Dragon said privately to Errant over the radio.

"_Wait. I'm making one more run at it_," Errant said. "_Dragon. This might need the sacrifice of a few drones. Can I count on you for that?"_

"_I can always build more drones. You don't need any specific cape's powers?"_

"_Othala would have been nice. But no. This'll do."_

I had noted the conspicuous absence of the Empire members at this fight. At least a few members usually participated in each Endbringer fight. But since the last fiasco… I suppose many were too busy with their civilian lives spiraling out of control. And with no Empire left to speak of, there wasn't a reputation left to uphold. A shame, because the Empire had many capes that could have contributed well against Leviathan.

I watched as Errant and eight of Dragon's drones moved in formation towards Leviathan while other capes were still retreating. They transferred some containers, probably containing fresh nanobots, before charging ahead full speed. Dragon's drones formed a protective circle around Errant. But her drones, even though they were twice the size and ten times the weight of a normal human, couldn't block Leviathan's strength. Instead, they reacted to Leviathan's movements at a speed only a machine could perform, and pushed Errant out of the way of any deadly strikes.

One by one, each of Dragon's drones were crushed, smashed, and trashed on their approach to Leviathan, until Errant lunged at the same wound they had inflicted on Leviathan a few minutes earlier. With his halberd held like a javelin and his suit's boosters running full blast, he accelerated through the air at the beast's back. With Alexandria, Eidolon, and a few other high level Brutes tying Leviathan down for the final retreat, the monster only had his tail to whip at Errant.

Dragon used the last drone to give Errant a boost and correct his path as Leviathan tried to dodge. That drone got split in half for her efforts, but Errant made it to his target. He stabbed the halberd down with all the force he could muster, and I could tell that there were far more bots flowing out of the blade this time than they had before. Moreover, the halberd itself had some kind of high-energy plasma injection system that forced their nanobots into the area, digging harder and deeper.

Their bots crumbled after literally a single use, being pushed to the absolute limits of their capability. The cut was making progress, going a little further than my own bots managed, but it was slow. Agonizingly slow, more like erosion than cutting. I tried to help as much as I could, clearing debris and broken bots out of the way so the new ones could attack the cut directly, but even that didn't help much.

"_Errant, look out!"_ Dragon's voice warned him of the danger, but he couldn't react fast enough, and I didn't have enough functional bots remaining to provide much help. Leviathan had thrown off a Brute that had held back his tail, and now sent it whipping at Errant. He bucked, throwing Errant off his back, while the tail came cutting across.

It smashed through the halberd, causing all its remaining reserves to explode. Errant, still in the air trying to reorient himself, had part of his leg twisted into a sickening direction. The thrusters on that leg fired uncontrollably, putting more torque on the injured limb and sending him into an chaotic spin. At least I had enough bots in the water to catch him when he fell.

When he hit the water, I knew that leg was mangled beyond repair. Panacea could do it, but only if I managed to retrieve the section of leg that had flown off as his suit was torn apart. That thruster carried it off like a bottle rocket.

I could still stabilize him and bring him to the medical tent, at the very least.

The worst part was, I didn't think that attack did a whole lot. He had managed to dig another inch further, and as far as my bots could tell, Leviathan's armour – or body – only got even tougher. If Princess had been right about that part being Leviathan's weak spot, I couldn't find anything weak about it.

Dragon and the Triumvirate called for a regroup. I had to agree. There were still more capes inbound, this time from overseas. We still had a chance to take this further, depending on who showed up.

But then again, there was still one cape that had been conspicuously absent from this fight.

A cape that had made a name for himself for fighting Leviathan. One who _should_ have been here.

In a far-off section of town that had been sunk underwater long before I arrived, my bots sensed the temperature of the water rise rapidly.

Then, like the bursting of a geyser, a plume of water – no, steam – shot into the sky. At the base was a bright, yellow-orange glow, and a figure that was half of Leviathan's size. There was a roar that shook the city, and draconic form stepped forward.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

\- This chapter came late on account of me finishing a new bike build and trying to enjoy the last few days of good weather while it lasts.


	51. Excavator 3

Excavator 3

When Lung finally decided to engage Leviathan, it changed everything about the fight. Everyone's plans went out the window. No longer was anyone trying to team up and for fancy power combinations to strike the Endbringer. It boiled down to a simple fact: either you could take the heat, or you stayed out of the way. It went from standard anti-Leviathan tactics to something more like anti-Behemoth. Instead of a kill-aura, it was a steam-aura. Anyone who couldn't simultaneously survive superheated steam exposure and potential drowning simultaneously was not of any help.

The fight was now like a hurricane that the rest of us was merely trying to redirect. If it dragged on like this for longer, it might not just be a metaphor. The massive clash of hot and cold, fire and water was altering the weather.

Most capes could only stand back and watch. There was no helping Lung or hurting Leviathan. If Leviathan's waves didn't kill you, then Lung's flames would. If you didn't drown, then you got boiled alive. All while blinded because you also needed a power to see through the thick fog of steam. The unlucky ones who got a little too close were sucked into the fight – there was a strong water current pushing people into them, created as the water near Lung boiled away and more water flowed in to fill the void. The massive plume of rising steam told people where the fight was happening, for those who couldn't see it directly. The occasional explosion and bright glow was hard to miss, too.

My bots were capable of surviving more extreme environments than most people, so I was able to keep an eye on things. But even my own vision wasn't great, I could only get vague images because my bots couldn't handle the turbulent air and water, and that was before trying to see through the steam. However, it was enough to tell that Lung was bigger than I had ever seen before. I was mostly keeping track of them by where they were stomping on my bots.

This was no longer an Endbringer battle, per se. It was difficult to completely change strategies mid-fight, and it wasn't always the same types of capes that volunteered for Leviathan that volunteered for Behemoth. Most people weren't ready to jump into a fight where their skin would burn off if they came within a hundred yards of the target.

The city was considered almost a lost cause. If Lung couldn't stop Leviathan, nobody could. For everyone else, it was just an evacuation mission. Just avoid getting cooked while watching two polar opposites clash. The most powerful Brutes and Blasters, the only ones who could still safely participate, tried to steer the fight towards the already-destroyed areas of town, with minor success.

It didn't stop a few more daring capes from attempting one final assault, led by Alexandria. Maybe they thought Lung was on their side. Or that he would be willing to coordinate something. But he was either unwilling, or he was too focused on Leviathan to care. He ignored all calls by the incoming capes for support or any kind of strategy. He trampled through them, their vehicles, and a few buildings without care. Wood and concrete structures crumbled beneath them like sandcastles. Even those that could survive the heat still had to give a wide berth as Lung ripped out streetlights to swing at Leviathan.

The capes gave up trying to work with Lung and tried to hit Leviathan directly. The problem was the two of them were moving too much, grappling, throwing, tripping each other. Each time one fell, so did a building. But Leviathan was fast, and so was Lung. When the other capes attempted to hit Leviathan when Lung was down, the dragon recovered faster than they expected, and got blasted from behind.

That didn't kill him, but it only made him angrier. He roared and let out a massive pillar of flame, probably as a warning to the others. Leviathan was craftier than most people gave him credit for, though. He used Lung to his advantage and quickly repositioned to put Lung between himself and the newly arriving capes. He then sent out a huge wave of water that splashed over Lung, which knocked over the fiery dragon down and flash-boiled the water.

The fliers could dodge by rising upwards, but scalding water was about to crash over the ones on foot. I couldn't let them all get burned to death, so I had all the bots I could muster rise up and form a protective mesh. It wasn't so much to block the water completely, but slow it down and give just a little extra time for them to flee. Lucky for me, as my bots rearranged themselves, they also pulled up a whole lot of cold water up with them like jello.

The superheated wave crashed against my jelly-like mound of bots, some of it flowing through and mixing with the cold. Some boiling water spilled over, but the majority of what hit the heroes was merely hot and not scalding. Some of the other water seemed to slow on its own; apparently a hydrokinetic hero was in the group.

I was glad they knew what they were doing, because I certainly didn't. The water was extremely turbulent, not to mention the wild temperature swings, meant my bots couldn't get near the two of them effectively. I was mostly just protecting everyone else.

Even though Lung was constantly growing bigger, he didn't seem to be gaining any advantage. He started the fight the size of a bodybuilding basketball player and seemed to be on equal ground. Now he was more than double that size and was still at a stalemate. At this point he was still slightly smaller than Leviathan, but he was growing more and more draconic, with more scales and an elongated, lizardlike body that eerily mirrored Leviathan's. It was more snakelike than dragonlike, but I suppose his superpower wasn't specifically to turn into a dragon, just that he used a dragon theme.

Lung roared and beat his chest. I think he was trying to speak, but it was completely unintelligible. I wasn't sure if he was trying to talk to the Endbringer or just hype himself up. He roared again, flexed his muscles, and exploded in another massive fireball that flattened yet another city block.

Or maybe he was grandstanding? After all, Lung had originally earned his reputation for taking Leviathan solo, and surviving. The reason the ABB even survived despite having so few capes was almost entirely because of that rep. I suppose it would be a huge hit to his reputation if he had been seen running away for round two.

Which made me wonder how far he would go just to save face.

Would he fight as hard today as he did in Kyushu? Did we _want_ him to fight that hard? I mean, when he fought "for" Kyushu, it basically ceased to exist. It had been somewhere around fourteen thousand square miles. The city of Brockton Bay, including the bay itself, was only a little over fifty. The city would be long gone before either of them got serious.

Maybe Lung would quit after just reminding everyone of his power. Or maybe Leviathan would leave before that. One could only hope. The fight continued to escalate, and now even the Triumvirate was regrouping to figure out a new plan.

Say goodbye to Medhall. Lung threw the Endbringer into the biggest building of the city, and then leaped after him for some follow-up smashing. The two combatants completely ignored several thousand tons of steel, concrete, and glass that fell on top of them.

I wasn't sure if Lung had done that deliberately to spite Kaiser. Even though Max Anders and other Empire members had been quickly booted out by the board of directors after their reveal, Medhall had still managed to earn a reputation as a racist bastion. Although I didn't think Lung actually cared about racists beyond how they could hurt or threaten him directly. Maybe the Medhall building had just been a convenient place to throw an Endbringer.

The two of them didn't exactly burst out of the pile of rubble. Lung blasted all the rubble away with one of his signature explosions. The rubble went flying for miles, and it disrupted my control of hundreds of my brains. Several capes died from the pressure wave alone, and it happened too fast for me to prevent it. I was able to save the ones who had been further from the blast, since I had more time to react.

* * *

We now had to evacuate the medical tent. The fight was growing in size, and even if they weren't actually moving towards us, the radius of destruction was uncomfortably close. Debris from that last explosion from Medhall almost sent concrete and steel chunks into the so-called safe point. We were going to have to fall back to a secondary point. That meant even slower and less support for capes at the front line, which meant even fewer capes would want to continue fighting. The city was basically forsaken.

* * *

I didn't want to let that happen. And I wasn't the only one. Brockton Bay may have been a small city, but if you took a landmass the size of Kyushu and dropped it on the map of the Eastern USA and centered right here, Boston would be caught within easily, and New York was dangerously close. A lot of people didn't want a huge chunk of the eastern seaboard wiped away; it would be a bigger disaster than Behemoth's attack on New York. The problem was nobody knew how to handle it. At this point, it was almost like trying to fight two Endbringers simultaneously, and people always had enough trouble handling one alone.

To be fair to Lung, he did seem to be trying to push the fight towards the ocean. At times I felt like he was actually trying to protect the city. You might think that pushing Leviathan into the ocean would only give the Endbringer more of an advantage, but it didn't really. The city was already flooded, waves from the ocean were washing all through downtown up to the commercial district, and the rain was pelting down harder than ever. It seemed that Lung didn't care about a little extra water here or there, he was just boiling all of it away with his flames anyway.

Leviathan didn't seem interested in retreating, either. He ran straight back towards the city, while Lung intercepted him with a massive fireball-enhanced punch. The shockwave blew the water away down to the dirt below the bay, digging up a whole new pit within the bay that was rapidly refilled with water. The landscape was rapidly changing as the two of them constantly dug craters and trenches into the ground in their struggle.

However, Leviathan wasn't done. He charged Lung, lifting the dragon-man off the ground and smashing him through several buildings. Lung clawed at Leviathan's back and tried to put the monster into a headlock, but I doubted the Endbringer needed to breathe anyway. Leviathan ended up smashing Lung into the base of the hill near the South Landing.

The scary part was that there was an Endbringer shelter underneath that hill. It was in one of the more densely-populated areas of the city with plenty of signs pointing the way – it must have been filled to capacity. I flooded bots towards it, hoping to protect its air supply and reinforce its structure to prevent leaking or collapse.

Meanwhile, the two titans continued to pummel each other, but Leviathan was moving much more water as well. Instead of merely trying to drown Lung with water, he was now sending water coursing through the ground, digging up dirt and mixing it into mud. Lung was now being buried alive under rivers of mud. Even with his usual strategy of boiling away the water, the dirt that remained was piling on him, all while Leviathan was keeping him held down.

Alexandria was the one to come to Lung's rescue, smashing Leviathan off of Lung. The two tangled with each other as they tumbled northeast, rolling through the already-annihilated Downtown area. It gave Lung a chance to explode once again, pushing all the dirt away. He roared again, then caught up with the fight just as Alexandria was caught by Leviathan's tail around the neck. The monster shoved her underwater.

Lung made no move to rescue Alexandria, but just growled at Leviathan. The monster just stared at him, expressionless.

Lung was the first to attack. He charged Leviathan, and then promptly fell through a hole that suddenly opened up under his feet.

Leviathan was doing his most infamous technique now. He was eroding away the land at a rapid pace. Water was seeping into the dirt and bedrock underneath the city, shaking and vibrating and breaking everything apart. A steam geyser opened up, blowing away huge chunks of dirt. Lung attempted to crawl out of the hole, gasping for air. Leviathan used the muddy water to smash him back down under. Lung managed to grab Leviathan and attempted to use the monster as leverage to crawl back up. Instead, Leviathan dove down, which happened to free Alexandria.

_"He's using the aquifier! He's going to sink the city!"_ Alexandria's voice came through on the armbands. _"Anyone who can't fight underground, evacuate!"_

There weren't any who could as far as I was aware. Moleman wasn't in this fight and even if he was, he certainly couldn't stop Leviathan alone. I saw Eidolon turn intangible and fly straight through the ground. He may have been strong, but I really wondered if he had a power that could intervene in a fight between Lung and Leviathan, while underwater.

* * *

There was no more hesitation. No more last-ditch protests of heroic efforts. The city was lost, and everyone was just going to evacuate now. But there was still that itch to do _something_. Like Vista, who insisted she could still help. And, to be fair, I had the same thoughts.

The worst thing was the Endbringer shelters. The city had several of them. For a smaller city, it had a disproportionately high number of them, mostly because Fortress Construction had been based here. That meant a whole lot of people were going to be trapped inside them, underground. They had limited power, limited air supply, limited food.

And there was no way to safely evacuate thousands of people through a dark, flooded city while the ground beneath them was crumbling and the local dragon might just boil them alive as he passed by. The alternative was to just abandon them. It was a lose-lose situation.

Unless I did something about it.

Most of my bots had already taken the injured to the medical or designated fallback areas. They didn't need my help to escape the fight; most capes had been gradually abandoning the effort once Lung got involved. That meant all the bots I had spread around the city didn't need to be on transportation duty any more. Now it was time for civilian rescue.

I had a hard time understanding what Leviathan was truly doing to the city until my bots got down into the dirt. I rarely had a reason to dig deep underground before, but I had done enough to realize that something was wrong. The dirt was moving too quickly. It was far too wet, far too loose.

On the surface, people probably wouldn't have noticed, especially not with the flooded land. But underneath, I could sense dirt being washed away by the water. Buildings didn't crumble or fall right away, because they were often fairly stable until a large chunk of their foundations disappeared. Then they toppled rather suddenly. I only realized that more of the city was beyond saving than I had hoped after my bots were already down there. At least I could concentrate more bots into the remaining parts of the city to save what was left.

While I couldn't stop Leviathan himself, maybe my bots had the power to stop him from sinking the city. I knew that tree roots prevented erosion, holding dirt and preventing landslides. Could I possibly do the same with my bots? Did I have enough of them?

My bots started interlinking themselves to create a mesh, net-like structure through the ground. I had to play around with the size of the holes between them as well as the thickness of the chains of bots. I needed to optimize how much of the earth I could actually hold together given the number of bots I had.

Of course, Leviathan himself wasn't done. Underground, he was still fighting with Lung and Eidolon, causing massive earthquakes. Some parts of the city I just wouldn't be able to save; the shaking and forces were too intense.

But it seemed to be working. The ground underneath the city was eroding more slowly, if not outright stopped in some places. It was taking all of my bots at the moment, so I could no longer see anything on the surface except near my actual body. But the dirt was holding tight, and no more buildings had crumbled in the past minute.

Except the Arts Centre, but that was directly above where Leviathan and Lung and Eidolon were still brawling. I think Lung managed to get another breath of air at the cost of a few more city blocks sinking into a hole.

"_Tsunami warning. Incoming tsunami detected. All capes, evacuate to fallback zone 8,_" Dragon warned us all through the armbands.

So Leviathan was now eroding the ground _and_ calling in a tsunami while smashing through the city. I didn't know if he really hated Brockton Bay for some reason, or just had a huge grudge against Lung.

* * *

A tug on my arm made me realize that things were happening with my actual body, too. At the medical tent and command posts, the heroes were packing up and evacuating. The battle was effectively over. Panacea healed up as many people as she could while they passed by, and I did the same. Vicky and her family came and helped carry people away, but I couldn't lose connection with my bots.

"Come on, Eunoia, we have to go!" Glory Girl insisted as she pulled me along.

"I'll be fine! There's something I need to do," I said. "Abyssal will get me out of here if it gets dangerous."

"The city's gone! Didn't you hear Dragon? The giant wave is coming!" Glory Girl grabbed me by the arm. Her extreme strength meant I had no choice but get lifted into the air.

"Wait, wait! Don't fly me too far! I need to be close!" I shouted at her desperately.

"Close for what? What are you doing?" she said, slowing down. We were fairly high in the air, but at least I was still in range.

"Leviathan's trying to erode the earth. I'm stabilizing it," I said. "I think I can save part of the city. It's not totally a lost cause!"

Glory Girl stared at me incredulously. "Since when did you have earth powers?"

"I don't. I'm using my nanobots."

"The ones you use for medical work?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"It'll take a while to explain, but the basic answer is… using all the bots I have, I'm gripping the city's foundations and holding it together," I told her.

The ocean started to rise upwards once more. This time there were even fewer capes trying to help us create temporary levees or hydrokinesis to block the incoming wave, as everyone was abandoning the fight. So much water was coming that it seemed more like the city was sinking.

Dirt and foundations continued to loosen, and my , their foundations shifting under the softened earth. I focused even more on my bots to move to the sections that needed the most reinforcement.

I didn't even really know why I was trying so hard to save Brockton Bay. I had lost my house, and New Wave had lost theirs as well. Dad didn't have a job here any more. I hated Winslow. The city had nothing left for me.

But I supposed that it was a bit of a sunk cost fallacy. I had invested so much in this city. I spent months expanding the coverage of my bots until I could finally clean up the gang situation. I had nearly managed it, too. I didn't want all that work to just be washed away.

Flooded buildings could be repaired, as long as they were still standing. Flood waters would recede. The only thing I really needed to make sure of was that Leviathan didn't erode the land away completely. Downtown, the Docks, the Trainyard... all those places would have to be sacrificed if necessary to save the people who were hiding in the shelters. Most of Brockton Bay's most iconic districts would be gone; the city would be a shell of its former self once this was over.

Top priority was the Endbringer shelters. They were underground bunkers, not meant to be underwater for very long. While they were heavily armoured and could likely withstand the quaking right now, thousands of lives would die slow deaths by suffocation if they got washed out to sea.

I didn't have a map on me for the current Endbringer shelters around the city, and admittedly they had been a low priority for me. I didn't think my dinky little city would have been a target. I mostly went by memory of emergency evacuation signs – signs that had mostly been forgotten as background noise given how little I had needed them before.

"Message to Dragon. I need a map of Brockton Bay's Endbringer shelters," I said into the armband.

"_I have it here. How shall I deliver the data?"_

"I have your brain-machine interface device in some of my brains. Just send over a basic bitmap on wifi from one of your drones," I said.

I received the image in one of my brains not too long afterwards. I organized my bots and quickly sent them to all the ones I missed. It was then that I noticed something odd.

I had incidentally found one more Endbringer shelter close to Leviathan and the underground fight. I was only trying to prevent the forces from the fight from spreading too much to the rest of the city, but my bots found an underground structure that was almost exactly the right size, shape, and composition as the other Endbringer shelters.

"Dragon, was there ever a record of an Endbringer shelter built at the corner of Balsam and 22nd Avenue?" I asked to confirm.

"_Searching – there is a record of a permit application but it was put on hold for some reason. No record of completion or inspection."_

Maybe an incomplete one, then? I suppose there probably wasn't anyone inside. I probably couldn't save it anyway. It had already sunk far deeper underground, its ventilation and everything else must have been cut off long ago, and its structure must be leaking water inside, mainly because it was the one closest to where Leviathan and Lung were fighting.

"That's all the time we have, we're going now!" Glory Girl shouted as she yanked me up into the sky.

The tsunami had arrived. I could only hope I did enough for the people in the shelter.

* * *

Some people thought a tsunami was just a really big wave. It really wasn't, and Leviathan was capable of doing far more. When we had arrived, the entire town was under several feet of water. This would put Captain's Hill under. It wasn't just a single big wave, it was like the entire ocean was swelling and sea level itself was suddenly a hundred feet higher. My bots could feel the rise in the water, there was no back of the wave visible where the water level came back down.

The problem was we were already at the highest point in the city, and everywhere we were trying to evacuate was going to be flooded in a few seconds.

Glory Girl saved me and Panacea. Panacea rode piggyback while I was got dragged up by an arm as the water rushed through, washing away the medical and command posts. Not everyone could get away fast enough. Not everyone had a flying friend to lift them up.

I did the best that I could – I created floaties using my bots, knitting them together into an airtight pod. I even altered their colour so that they would end up highly reflective and easy to see. It was a cheap and quick way to save the most lives with the fewest bots, since most of them were still underground trying to stop the entire city from being swept away. They'd get wet, but at least they would float and breathe. Some were able to grab on themselves, but most were too panicked to notice them. For those capes, I just stuck the bots to them when they passed by.

Some capes were standing on rooftops and praying that the buildings they took shelter on could withstand the water. I think they must have misunderstood how huge a tsunami really was, expecting just another one of Leviathan's big waves. I had more bot-floaties ready for them just in case, but it didn't seem necessary.

Meanwhile, plenty of other capes were helping with the evacuation. Vista especially. She warped space to allow the isolated capes to hop from roof to roof to safety. Sometimes, water would flow uphill as heights were warped too, letting people run away safely, though awkwardly.

"How long can you hold on, Amy? Are your arms getting tired?" I asked.

"Maybe ten minutes," she said. "The ride home from the hospital is usually pretty quick."

"I'm going to make us a boat," I told them. We had no idea how long the tsunami would last – it could be anything between minutes to hours. I knew Glory Girl could hold up the both of us in the air that long, but it was Amy and I that would get tired first.

Call me a bit vain, but I used more bots on my boat than I did for the floaties I made for everyone else. The bots formed a reasonably sturdy but lightweight rowboat-sized spot for us to sit in. My bots acted as microscopic bilge pumps as well, keeping the inside from flooding despite the waves and rain. After we landed in it, I also added more bots to create a cover. It did have room to expand, and whenever we came across a drifting cape, I pulled them into our makeshift life raft.

I wondered if Lung was still fighting. The rushing water made it too chaotic and noisy for me to sense the ground vibrations. I assumed that Lung himself still needed to breathe, and even underground and underwater, he must have run out of breath by now.

I got my answer by way of the largest geyser I had seen yet. It had to have been Lung. Steam quickly turned to fog, blocking our view of what had happened.

Seconds later, there was an extremely bright glow in the sky. I assumed that was the strongest and brightest that Lung had ever been, and that the dragon man was only getting angrier. But the fog immediately cleared out. The light wasn't the reddish-orange of a flame, but a golden glow that seemed almost divine.

Scion was here. The fight was over.

He shot a beam of golden light straight into the water. A second later, the ground bulged out, almost like he was yanking a plant out of a garden. The mud and dirt fell away to reveal a thrashing Endbringer. He tossed Leviathan towards the ocean, sending several more energy blasts at it, one of which severed part of its tail before it landed in the water. Chunks and chunks of its body were being carved out by the beam even as it retreated.

I watched in a bit of envy as I noted how much work we had put into the Nanothorn for so little effect while Scion went so much further just by pointing his finger. But that wasn't important.

Brockton Bay had been saved. Mostly. It wasn't completely destroyed, and thousands of lives had been lost. But the hard part was over. Now we could focus on recovery. Everyone began cheering, shouting at the original hero.

As usual, Scion ignored them. He did hang out for a few seconds, staring at the ground near where he had pulled Leviathan away, close to the unmarked Endbringer shelter. Lung was unconscious and human again, and Eidolon seemed to be extremely tired and bloody – it looked like the fight had managed to overwhelm both of their regenerative Brute abilities. Scion did nothing to help them. Then he simply zoomed away. Weird guy.

While I could be bitter that he didn't come earlier, everyone was far more glad that he had come at all. The world had more or less gotten used to the world's first cape having ADHD or something like it. I wished I had the chance to actually see inside his mind, see what was wrong with him, but not now. Brockton Bay was in ruins, most of the business district and a large chunk of the residential areas were completely destroyed by the tsunami. We needed to save lives and rebuild.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

\- I feel like I didn't have enough Kaiju action here, but honestly at the same time I have a hard time writing that kind of action in this scenario without being too repetitive... there are only so many buildings that can be smashed and Lung knows Leviathan is nearly invincible anyway.


	52. Excavator 4

Excavator 4

As the tsunami waters receded from the city, there was nothing left on the surface but debris. It was completely unrecognizable. Just about every wooden or brick building had been pulverized, and their broken pieces were strewn across the streets. Even a few of the taller concrete structures had toppled. What junk hadn't been washed out to sea now littered the streets. The destruction was so complete that it was hard to tell where streets ended and the ruined buildings began in some places. Some of the tall buildings that had been hit had toppled over, crushing other buildings and making navigation even harder for rescue crews. Meanwhile, sinkholes broke apart the streets and ate up swaths of asphalt, making the roads even more hazardous.

It would take a massive concerted effort to clean everything up, though my bots could make short work of it once I built up the numbers. Sure, I had a lot of bots in the city. But the grand majority of them were now literally holding the city together. Though the floodwaters had receded below street level, underground it was still a loose and slippery puddle of mud. My network of bots was the only thing stopping half of the city from sliding into the sea, at least until the waters fully receded and things dried properly. That could take days or weeks.

I did spare what bots I could for replication. The upside was that there was no shortage of materials, it was all junk nobody would miss. In fact, most of it was a hazard to the recovery. Why not recycle the material into something useful? I figured that, as each Endbringer shelter was evacuated, I could liberate those bots for garbage-crunching duty when they no longer had to protect people.

To do that more quickly, I needed some help.

"Glory Girl, do you mind getting a little dirty?" I asked as she passed by while dropping off a pallet full of medical supplies.

"What kind of dirty?" she asked, eyeing me suspiciously.

"I need you to find a shovel… maybe a big one. Rip one off an industrial digger if you can find one, but the Endbringer shelters need to be saved," I told her. "They're all buried underground right now, but we have a chance of getting them out."

"Wait, really? But… the engineers said they would have run out of air even before the water levels dropped."

I shook my head. "I've been keeping them alive with my bots. Gave them some snorkels. Abyssal can show you the way. I'll let Dragon know too."

"Got it!" she said. I suppose she was excited to do more "heroic" work than being a flying delivery girl.

For the official government agencies, excavating the shelters had been shifted to a lower priority. I couldn't really blame them; both Thinkers and engineers had assumed the combination of the Lung-Leviathan fight, the erosive action by Leviathan, the tsunami all combined would normally have been unsurvivable. Add that to the long time it took the waters to recede, the fact that the shelters themselves had shifted underground to different locations, and the difficulty of getting heavy construction equipment to the areas meant that rescue was deemed fruitless.

Most were expected to either be fully flooded or run out of air hours before the rescue efforts even _started_, and they didn't see the point in simply opening up a concrete coffin filled with suffocated or drowned bodies. They just hadn't accounted for me patching up the cracks with my bots and providing the entire buildings with makeshift snorkels. The people might be hungry and thirsty, but alive.

A few other super-strength capes like Glory Girl or earth-moving Shakers could do the job, if they knew exactly where to dig. Dragon could probably supply more drones, if she could build them fast enough and send them over. While I had bought them time, I hadn't bought them unlimited time. Many of them still had taken damage I could only patch, not repair. And even with their air supply secure, they still had limited food, water, and first aid supplies.

Just like in the medical tent or hospital, I triaged. Those who could survive being left behind a little longer could wait. Those who needed to be saved more urgently got first priority. And those who were unlikely to survive even if I got there as fast as I could… well, they might unfortunately have to wait forever.

My hundreds of brains all made their own judgments of each shelter they were overseeing. Depth, damage, oxygen levels, number of people inside, supplies, stability of the dirt… with most of my brainpower set on the task, it didn't take long to make a priority list.

When Glory Girl found, and ripped apart an excavator bucket, I had Abyssal form nearby to lead her to the highest priority shelter. Abyssal turned his sword into a big shovel, and started digging. Glory Girl followed suit enthusiastically, shoveling literal tons of dirt at a time. I just had to make sure we dug at an angle so that people would actually be able to climb out without hurting themselves.

I had chosen the first shelter because it was at a shallow depth, yet moderately damaged, so they needed help soon. It also quickly liberated a lot of my bots, which I could then use for rescuing others. I let the whole thing collapse after the last person had climbed out, which caused all the evacuees to thank their incredibly "lucky" timing.

I didn't let Glory Girl bask in the crowd's gratefulness. Abyssal tapped on her and pointed her towards the next shelter to dig up.

* * *

Meanwhile, Panacea and I were kept busy in the medical tent. A high-priority one was the "star" of the Endbringer battle. Never mind the fact that he arguably caused just as much damage as the Endbringer himself. He was brought in by Alexandria herself, unconscious. The Triumvirate had left after that, with little more than a strong suggestion to the healers that it would look bad if Lung died after fighting Leviathan.

Honestly, Lung didn't even need that much healing. We barely had to do anything and most of us weren't interested in cozying up to him. Lung himself wasn't interested in dying, nor was he interested in being coddled. Though he had been unconscious and battered when Scion chased Leviathan off, his wounds were already closing. Panacea just touched him briefly and declared, "He'll be fine."

It didn't take long before he had healed enough to wake up. He sat up, taking a look around to get his bearings, but said nothing. A few other healers, mostly out-of-towners that had only heard the legend but never met the actual cape himself, tried to offer their services. "Do you need one of my potions?" asked Desnia, a somewhat medieval-themed chemistry Tinker. She styled herself as a fantasy potioneer, and I suspected she had a thing for dragons.

"No," he said, barely giving her a second glance. "I am Lung." Now fully awake, he merely wrapped a basic robe around his waist and walked out of the tent.

"Jeez. Cocky much?" Clockblocker said, after Lung was after earshot.

"Does it count if he can back it up?" asked I-Peace, one of the healers from out of town that had been more wary of Lung than the others.

"You know, I heard stories about how crime in this place is out of control. Rumour had it the Protectorate was just being lazy, but after seeing him… I think I get it," said Cryton, one of the capes from Canada. "Why do you guys stay here?"

"Because it's my home," Clockblocker answered hastily.

"I can actually make a difference here," Vista added. "In some other city I'd just be doing dumb things like standing around for photo shoots and signing autographs."

"You'd rather fight villains like _him_ instead of meeting fans? Seriously?"

"He wasn't even the worst, actually," Aegis pointed out.

"You're joking."

"Well, not for us Wards," he clarified. "Armsmaster and Dauntless were the ones who dealt with Lung most often. The Empire had a lot of… wild capes that sometimes took things too far. Like Hookwolf, or Cricket."

"But all of them are gone now," Vista said. "I like Miss Militia but Armsmaster just got things done, you know? Miss Militia is babying us even more."

"Yeah, it really wasn't fair what happened to Beardmaster," Clockblocker said. "Everyone knows that what happened to Browbeat was the villain's fault. He didn't have to get fired for that."

"I'm right here," said a gruff voice to their left. Errant had been brought in by my bots, but we never found his leg, unfortunately. I was keeping his body held together and hoped that Panacea could tidy up the infection and amputation. His suit was completely destroyed, and I had to cut him out of it. At least his helmet was intact. He wasn't being healed fully because he intended to install more prosthetics anyway; he was just waiting for Dragon to make the delivery.

"Oh jeez, is that really you? Armsmaster?" Aegis exclaimed.

"I don't go by that name any more," Errant told them.

"So… uh, looks like that fight cost you an arm and a leg," Clockblocker said, though he looked a bit squeamish at the state of the man's body.

"Just the leg," Errant replied. "I lost the arm when I took down Saint."

"How are you not in total a state of pain right now?" Cryton asked.

"Directed painkillers and nerve blockers. It appears my recently-installed digital nerve interface helps me manage the signal as well. Desnia makes an effective numbing salve as well."

Cryton looked at the Wards while pointing at Errant. "Is that normal?"

Clockblocker shrugged. "Sounds like Armsy."

I-Peace scoffed. "Sounds like Brockton Bay. Alright Wards, you're all healed up. Get outta here, we have more patients."

"Finally!" Vista was the first to rush out.

* * *

The group of civilians from the first shelter were now starting to reach the fallback zone, guided by Abyssal and my bots. The journey had been somewhat treacherous, and Abyssal had to act like the shepherd quite often. There had been many paths that looked simpler but were very hazardous. My bots did the best to clear out the safest path to make it an obvious choice, but they could only work so fast.

There were cheers of relief when they saw the encampment. These people had been marching for a while through a completely ruined city, a lot of them had been feeling helpless. But seeing another large group of survivors, with supplies and communications, roused their spirits. The ones who were feeling well enough started running towards the camp.

Likewise, everyone at the fallback camp noticed the large, cheering group of people. It was always a relief to find more survivors, and seemingly miraculous to find such a large group in good health.

It also sparked action among the search-and-rescue plans. When they told everyone they had come from an Endbringer shelter, that sparked an immediate review of their previous analysis. There was a quick rush to reorganize their rescue priorities, shifting back to trying to find the other shelters.

They needed a guide to actually find the shelters. Their maps weren't too helpful – while reinforced underground bunkers normally didn't just get up and walk away, Leviathan attacks were anything but normal. The shifting earth had moved some of them up to a hundred feet away from their original location, and their front doors completely flooded or disconnected from the surface entrance. Right now, I was the only one who knew where all of them were exactly, though I was sure there were some Tinkers out there that could map the underground to find them too.

I used Abyssal to act as a guide, sending the helpers towards Glory Girl, where she was already working on digging up the next shelter. As the other rescuers rushed to help her with the excavation effort, I decided to use the bots to consume the debris and hazards that littered the roads so they would have a safe path to and from the shelters.

Glory Girl was basking in the attention, even though she was completely caked in mud. I think her aura was actually being quite helpful, raising the enthusiasm and optimism of everyone around her.

* * *

The trickle of news was fairly positive as far as Endbringer attacks went. But while I was hearing a lot of relief, none of it was for Brockton Bay. Instead, people were just happy Leviathan came _here _instead of somewhere… nicer. Brockton Bay was almost a total loss, sure, but it wasn't exactly a valuable city. Nothing like New York or Los Angeles or Boston. It was a crime-ridden economically declining hole. In terms of lives lost, it was pretty low for civilians, and only average among capes. All in all, people were simply glad because it could have been much worse.

But the first major, positive news for Brockton Bay that was being reported was the civilians being rescued. Originally, the shelters were thought to have become forsaken tombs for those inside. Now they were out, alive and well, so it was turned into a miracle story. It sure didn't feel like a miracle to me, though, just a whole lot of hard work. In all fairness, it was _relatively_ good.

For us on the ground, though, it was more of a logistical nightmare. Yes, it was good that thousands of people had been found safe. But we were trying to support those people in a town that had lost most of its infrastructure. The number of regular survivors after the battle was over was already stretching our supplies to the limit, and now we were going to triple the number of people to shelter and feed?

Yes, there was going to be tension and uneasiness.

That meant I needed to use another copy of Abyssal to help do some policing and prevent fights from breaking out while even more people were being rescued from around the city. He had to intervene when people were fighting over even stupid little things like standing under a canopy.

Some other capes were also trying to help, but the use of powers just caused some other people to lash out in fear. Others were causing as much problems as they were trying to prevent. Most of New Wave was also trying to impose some kind of law and order while Glory Girl was still away from the camp, digging out more survivors.

Unfortunately, normal law didn't exactly apply in situations like this. Things like jobs and bank accounts didn't really matter. Most people had little to offer, and it wasn't the kind of situation where we would only be saving those who had something to contribute. There were also the self-centered ones, normally law-abiding but reduced themselves to petty theft and hoarding in a stressful bid for survival.

Of course, having a villain in the mix caused a significant shift in _who_ got to set those rules. Especially when that villain had quite clearly just managed to do what all the other capes combined hadn't.

Surprisingly, Lung wasn't trying to take everything for himself. He naturally pulled all the former ABB members to him; none would dare ditch their boss now. He simply ordered everyone to find and scavenge, as well as divide the food and supplies. While his people were the ones guarding and distributing the supplies, they were actually being fair about it. For now. He even sent people out to scavenge for more.

"Lung! What do you think you're doing?" Brandish was the first to take issue with him.

"The people need leadership. I am a leader."

"You don't get to make the rules," she said, hovering higher so her face was just slightly above Lung's.

"On the contrary. My law is the only law, because all others are inadequate."

It was hard to deny. Lung commanded more people than the PRT did. And those who followed him didn't question his orders. Unlike the PRT and Protectorate, which was in a state of confusion. The Triumvirate had left, now that the situation had stabilized. The local PRT was missing quite a few people along the chain of command, having died in the battle. The organization was a mess trying to piece itself back together at the moment.

Lung's organization was simple. There was him, and there was everyone else. His words were law.

His men went over to a delivery of several crates of supplies. They'd been waiting for some kind of signature or authorization or whatever from the PRT, or maybe the mayor. Who knew. That was part of the whole confusion over jurisdiction and responsibility. Lung's men bypassed all of that, pushed aside the people guarding it, and wrenched the crates open. They started distributing the packages – individual survival packs with small ration bars, space blankets, and other little bits.

People cheered for him as they each received their little baggies.

"Stop that!" Brandish yelled.

"You wish for me to stop helping? Look around, hero. You would rather the people starve and go hungry? They have been suffering for an hour while these supplies sit uselessly. They suffer for your desire to preserve… _bureaucracy_."

"Carol, he's not completely wrong. This time," Lady Photon said. "We're here to minimize the suffering. What can we do, take the supplies _back_ from the people? At least we can just make sure they're distributed fairly."

At least Brandish knew when she was defeated as the people continued to cheer Lung, and yell at the guards who were feebly trying to prevent the packets from being given out. The rest of New Wave each gathered a handful each and flew off to distribute the packs more carefully than simply throwing them at the crowd that had gathered.

A few trips later, someone new arrived. "You will cease this instant! You are stealing from a federal agency! Who said you could take these?"

I didn't recognize the man, but given how he was being escorted by several PRT agents, I could only assume he was the new PRT director that replaced Calvert. The ABB members stopped pulling the crates apart, but only for a second. Lung glanced at the new director, then back at his men. With a mere flick of his finger, the men understood, and continued working.

"Agents, arrest them."

The PRT agents raised their weapons – they looked like shotguns, which I hoped were loaded with beanbag or rubber rounds.

Lung just gave an disapproving growl. The temperature shot up. All the guns were suddenly pointed at him, and the agents were looking very unsure of themselves.

"You have no authority here, little man." Lung turned to the crowds. "People of Brockton! This man would have you suffer with hunger, wet, and cold. Or would you follow me?" He flared his heat aura even stronger, to the point where it was uncomfortable to be near him. The water at his feet sizzled. The masses standing further away, however, felt a refreshing warmth after being soaked for so long.

The crowd let their opinions be known. Even though Lung was helping them for now, I was surprised at how quickly the crowd supported him. They were mostly Brockton residents; they knew how much of a problem the ABB had been. But a little short-term benefit had the whole mob entirely on Lung's side. Heck, it was obvious that Lung himself hadn't provided the packets, he just took them and gave them out. But the crowd didn't care. I was surprised how easy it was to sway them.

Tagg wasn't doing nearly so well. It really didn't take long before shouting and jeering turned to thrown objects. I had to use Abyssal to stop some of the deadlier objects like rocks from actually hitting him, but it was pretty clear where the crowd's displeasure was. Most of them weren't even ABB members, just people who had finally gotten their little survival packets.

Even though he was retreating, he wasn't leaving. The new director pointed at Brandish, Lady Photon, and Shielder, who had just finished distributing another round of supplies to the people. "And you! Are you working for Lung now?"

Brandish put a hand to her forehead. "I knew it…"

Lady Photon floated forward. "Director Tagg. These supplies were meant for the people. We're just making sure they're being given out fairly."

"And what are you doing to make sure people aren't cheating the system? Are you keeping records? Are you taking names? We don't have enough for everyone, we can't afford to hand these out haphazardly."

"And you have to have people wait here while you take your sweet time deciding who gets it first?" Shielder pointed out. "They're space blankets, glow sticks, and a cookie. Nobody's hoarding those."

"You're holding five of them right now."

"I was giving them out!"

"To whoever you like, not following any procedure. You're still breaking the law. Playing to the crowd is no excuse," Tagg said.

"Just because he's a villain doesn't mean he's wrong about everything," Shielder said. "And the damn law is making things worse for everyone. People needed their supplies sooner rather than later."

"It always starts with capes thinking they know better. You know your hero status is already under review. And now I see you helping Lung? Brockton Bay is descending into anarchy and you're part of the cause."

"We were only declared villains because your own damn predecessor was a villain that infiltrated the PRT!" Brandish shouted angrily. A light-weapon formed in her hands, and pointed it at the Director. Upon realizing what she was doing, she dismissed it just as quickly.

"What was that you said? Just because he was a villain, doesn't mean he was wrong. What Brockton Bay was lacking was law and order. The very fact that you, all of New Wave, claim to be heroes yet only enforce the law at your own convenience? You are only one step from villainy," Tagg said. "If you wish to be considered a hero, then join the Protectorate, and learn to work under rules, regulations, and _order_. You have until my reinforcements arrive to make your choice."

"Tagg, we had an agreement," Brandish said angrily.

"Well, the agreement's changed. Deal with it," the director sneered at her. He waved over one of the assistants, who pulled out some prepared paperwork. "You'd better have that signed the next time I see you."

* * *

Lady Photon called for a team meeting. Laserdream flew out to get Glory Girl, who had just nearly finished digging out the second-last Endbringer shelter. The other volunteers would be able to finish the job without issue. The final shelter I was reasonably certain wasn't even finished construction and was probably empty anyway.

Panacea and I had to be pulled away from medical duty too, which was especially annoying. But Brandish was worried that literally anything we did could be used against us. I thought the issue had been settled, that all we had to do was sign some papers before Leviathan hit the town.

Apparently not, though. The original contract was restrictive enough, which was why they had been waiting for us to return from Vancouver before actually agreeing to anything. This new contract, apparently, was twice as bad. Brandish had been going through the fine print, and the agreement was nothing like the original PRT agreement for independent teams.

It seemed that the new Director was taking full advantage of the disaster to forcibly recruit more capes into the PRT and Protectorate. Even offering incentives like better medical, food, and shelter, effective immediately. Anyone who didn't join was a villain. He was targeting all the independents and fresh, Leviathan-induced triggers first. He was drawing a hard line in the sand. If you weren't with them, you were against them. No more independent capes. Parian was an independent who famously just did puppetshows and dabbled in fashion and avoided the entire hero-villain conflict. And she was going to be labeled a villain. It could be argued that these contracts would be considered to be made under duress, but you would need a lawyer to do anything about it.

Tagg came to New Wave last because, well, we _did_ have a lawyer. He really was trying to completely eliminate the very concept of an Independent cape. The new director would have only allowed us to keep the name of "New Wave." Just the name. Everything else, from our patrol schedule to finances to costumes to online presence, would be managed by the Protectorate or PRT. We would, essentially, have to join up with the Protectorate and Wards, being nothing more than a sub-team within them. Otherwise, we would keep our label as villains.

I thought it was a terrible idea, but terrible PRT directors and Brockton Bay seemed to go hand-in-hand.

"We do have other options," Brandish mentioned. "Namely, a lawsuit. Invalidate Calvert's original ruling and therefore Tagg's support for it. But that'll cost a lot of time and money."

"Let's consider that a last resort," Lady Photon said. "What else can we do?"

"I'm still not a fan of joining the Protectorate," Manpower said.

"The fact that they're even doing this makes me not want to join them," said Shielder.

"Agreed," said his sister.

"Yup," added Glory Girl. "Who the hell does this director think he is?"

"I don't think I can work with him," I said cautiously. I was more worried about him figuring out my "extra" abilities, and Abyssal. He seemed to be the kind of control freak that would absolutely try to figure out and limit what I could do.

Not to mention what Amy could do. I was still the only one who knew how much she was hiding as well, in terms of ability.

Speaking of which, some of those plants she had made in Concord last month… they had turned up in Brockton Bay, their seeds distributed by the water currents, and they had taken root here. They had managed to survive Leviathan because apparently they were very hardy and were perfectly fine being submerged in salt water, yet they looked like a typical berry bush. Many of Lung's men had come across them, picking the edible berries.

I was pretty sure Amy was not going to take credit for a new, somewhat unnatural source of food.

"We could always move," Manpower pointed out. "Each PRT director has a pretty big say in how they run their department. Heading over to Boston or New York would mean we wouldn't have to deal with Tagg."

"Move? Again? We just barely got settled into Concord," Laserdream said.

"Just saying it's an option."

"We could wait it out. I'm pretty sure his appointment is temporary. The PRT surely couldn't have deliberately promoted someone that incompetent. They'll replace him when the crisis is over, I'm sure," Brandish said.

"Or they might close the ENE division entirely, maybe roll it into Boston," Lady Photon said. "The headquarters is underwater, the Rig is destroyed. It would cost too much for them to rebuild a separate division, or even maintain it."

"But what would we do in the meantime?"

"I don't care what they call me. I'm not going to stop being a hero," Glory Girl said, crossing her arms.

"We'll just have to win over public opinion. Make sure we document everything we do, personal cameras on every patrol. It's more important than ever," Brandish said.

"This is so stupid. That director's probably going to find a way to call us villains no matter what we do. As long as we're helping people, who cares?" Glory Girl complained.

"I agree," I said. "Come on, Panacea. Let's go back to healing people. I doubt any of our patients would be on Tagg's side."

* * *

As we walked away, I had a few moments of privacy with Panacea. "You know, those plants you made? It's feeding people right now. Thought you'd like to know," I whispered to her.

"Uh, thanks. You haven't told anyone, right?"

I nodded. "You going to make more? I'm going to use Abyssal to help harvest the berries. Your plants seem to be producing a lot of berries, it's feeding a good number of people."

She looked at me and sighed. "I might. Maybe if I can get some privacy. So many people here don't have enough nutrients so I can't even heal them fully. We need food."

"You might have to; I think I can see Director Tagg sending out agents to burn them down. He is scared of bio-tinker stuff, but it seems like he hates all capes."

"Not hate. Just power-tripping," Panacea pointed out. "I know his type."

"Well, I'm going to help harvest some while they last. Do you have any other ideas? Maybe a bush with toilet-paper leaves?" I joked, but toiletries really were in short supply here.

"I'll figure something out later." Our private conversation came to a quick end as we neared the medical tent. We had only been gone for fifteen minutes and we had an overflowing number of patients once again.

Speaking of which, medical support was a pretty big problem. While we had most of Leviathan's battle-casualties managed at this point, it didn't stop people from getting sick. Many survivors were already suffering from mild hypothermia, others had waded through waist-deep water, getting scratches, infections, or twisted ankles along the way.

Like Amy had said, she couldn't heal people if they were malnourished. Other healers, including myself, had similar limitations. A few powers couldn't handle all of this. We needed food, medicine, and actual doctors and nurses.

And there were still more to come. While all the survivors from the shelters had been recovered, there were still many other people across the city in isolated pockets.

Meanwhile, Brockton Bay had no functional hospitals left. All of Downtown was gone. All of the Boardwalk was gone. Most of the Old Quarter, South Landing, Westwood, all the way up to Captain's Hill had been washed away, and that meant Brockton General, Bayview, Hillside Surgical, and the Pediatric hospitals were all gone. Further away were only smaller clinics, and even those didn't have electricity or might have been flooded.

The solution was pretty simple. Since Leviathan had been kind enough not to annihilate the entire coastline, Boston and Concord were the two closest cities that could handle the additional patients. The main issue was simply opening up the roads so that ambulances and other transports could get through. With my freed bots, I focused on chewing through the road blockages. There was going to be a pretty big migration between a few cities, and the faster I could clear that up, the better.

Meanwhile, I could probably dig up the final shelter myself. Maybe I could find extra supplies in there, but I didn't think it was likely if it had been unfinished. It wouldn't hurt to check.

* * *

**Author's Notes**:

\- ah, the curse of having better ideas after something's already written, then trying to figure out if you can incorporate/re-write things so it still works out. I tend to get a lot of that while I'm writing, especially during the proofreading phase...


End file.
